


Widow's Letters

by Mhalachai



Series: A Widow's Tale [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Control Issues, Crossover, F/M, Family Secrets, Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mhalachai/pseuds/Mhalachai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanoff tries to reconnect with her son. This is  understandably easier said than done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Starts in 2002 and goes through the end of Stargate Atlantis; before the Avengers and Iron Man 2. 
> 
> This story runs concurrent John's life from his time in Afghanistan through the events of Stargate Atlantis. Most of the situations should be familiar to those who know Stargate; I will give better hints in notes to the relevant chapters. 
> 
> Major beta thanks to Websandwhiskers, who saved my life on this story more times than I can count.
> 
> PS John Sheppard is totally a Captain America fan boy, shut up.

> _July 30, 2002_
> 
> John,
> 
> I wouldn't have had you involved in this, but I cannot deny that seeing you again after all these years was much welcome. You look very well and I hope that perhaps we might be able to write to each oth

* * *

Natasha broke off her typing. She couldn't do this, she had a mission to prepare for. She didn't have time to write to John.

Write to her son.

DELETE DRAFT

She turned back to Agent Barton's briefing notes (and so much was written down, she had forgotten how much was on paper in these departments, she'd spent ten years memorizing and burning everything as she went, this much paper made her nervous) and once again reviewed the mission. She was to provide back up to Barton's reconnaissance in Budapest.

It was a bad idea, Natasha wanted to tell Agents Barton and Coulson. Agent Barton's specialty was long-distance recon, and in Budapest everything was gritty and up-close and hidden in shadows, and she hadn't been in the city in at least five years. Very few people would recognize her, and even if they did, no one was left to kill her.

But that wasn't her role. She was to be back up only.

She knew her choices had been SHIELD or death. She would take the roles as assigned to her while she was here. Even if that role was ill-conceived. Almost as bad as bringing John Sheppard into SHIELD's purview.

Natasha closed her eyes. She could not think of her son at a time like this.

A knock on the door brought her sharply to attention. She hadn't heard footsteps in the hallway, and so far only one person had been able to sneak up on her in SHIELD headquarters. Arming herself with the only knife she had been permitted to keep, Natasha moved noiselessly toward the door.

"You in there?" Agent Barton asked, and knocked again. "You didn't sneak off and re-join the circus?"

Natasha opened the door, shifting the knife out of sight. Agent Barton gave her a quick glance and pulled a face.

"I know some people say my briefing notes are shit, but really that bad?"

Natasha straightened her back. "Agent Barton."

"You look like someone just kicked your puppy--" he broke off, and something that might have been understanding crossed the man's face. "Never mind."

Natasha's stomach grew cold at his words. Was she giving so much of her emotions away? "Never mind what?" she demanded, holding herself motionless.

Agent Barton shrugged. "Just, you know."

"I would know _what_?"

"Family shit," Barton said. "You _are_ going to write Junior or something before we head off? Because I'm sure he was pretty serious about coming after Coulson if he doesn't hear from you."

Natasha's scope of awareness expanded automatically, taking in the ambient noise and the visuals in the hall (two SHIELD agents around the corner talking about a sporting event; one coming down the stairs, holding something to put him off balance; someone speaking on her comm as she walked in the other direction). How could Agent Barton be so _careless_ as to speak about John where others could hear?

His expression shifted from consoling to slightly alarmed. "Hey, I'm sorry I brought him up," Barton said.

Natasha blinked once, tried to pull herself back behind the mask of the Black Widow. "I do not wish to speak of Captain Sheppard," she said curtly.

"Okay," Barton agreed. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I guess we should go over the plan of attack. You want to grab some coffee?"

"You would not prefer to have this conversation somewhere more secure?" Natasha asked. Nothing about Agent Barton made any sense to her. How had someone like him ever become a SHIELD agent in the first place? This was the reason she had been running circles around SHIELD since before Barton was born.

He was younger than John, she realized.

"Come on," he urged, taking a step back. "We'll grab coffee and I'll show you this cool place I know. You can see people coming for miles."

A slight pressure in Natasha's head eased. Barton understood the need for keeping some things from the other agents.

"And you can tell me how stupid you think my plans are," he continued, letting some humor into his voice.

"I have not said anything--"

"Please, it's all over your face," Barton said. "Well, not all over, it's this twitch in the corner of your mouth, which is either that my plan sucks or I've got something in my teeth."

He waited for a beat, inviting a response, and for the first time in a very long time, Natasha wanted to respond for no other reason than that she could.

"There's nothing in your teeth."

Barton grinned, and Natasha gave him a faint smile in return.

Maybe SHIELD might not be the worst place to be, after all.

* * *

> _July 30, 2002_
> 
> Captain Sheppard, thank you for your visit. Our friend appreciated the assistance.
> 
> I will be overseas for the foreseeable future for work. You can write if you wish; I will respond if I can.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> N.

* * *

> _Aug. 1, 2002_
> 
> Hi. Can I call you Natasha? Anything else would be weird, but then all of this is weird so whatever.
> 
> And it's not like you're going to get this uncensored. Hi, Agent Coulson. I hope your suit is okay after the plane ride.
> 
> Afghanistan is hot and sandy. But I suspect you know that because, well, KGB or whatever and Russia and Afghanistan.
> 
> I'm up for promotion to Major this month so that's a thing.
> 
> Next time you write, tell me something so I know it's you and not your Agent buddy.
> 
> Have fun 'overseas'. Don't let the bedbugs bite.
> 
> js

* * *

> _Aug. 4, 2002_
> 
> John,
> 
> You may call me Natasha. I have been going by the Anglicization of my surname; you can address any correspondence to Natasha Romanoff.
> 
> I have never been to Afghanistan, you are correct, but I am familiar with the Soviet actions in the country in the 1980s.
> 
> Agent Coulson does have access to my email but I am told he will only access the information in the event that actions necessitate. I am not familiar with Agent Coulson's definition of necessity, however.
> 
> I wish you the best with your promotion.
> 
> It would be best if you did not tell your father that I am alive. I would refer to Agent Coulson for any suggestions around the cover story.
> 
> For your third birthday, we were going to surprise you with a chocolate cake, but you snuck into the kitchen that morning and started to cry that we would make you eat dirt. I made you lemon cupcakes instead and you helped stir the icing.
> 
> Natasha

* * *

> _Aug. 5, 2002_
> 
> Jesus fuck of course i'm not going to tell dad you're alive he fucking buried you and

* * *

> _Aug. 5, 2002_
> 
> I didn't mean to hit send on that.
> 
> Sorry.
> 
> Made Major.
> 
> j

* * *

> _Aug. 11, 2002_
> 
> Those were really good cupcakes.
> 
> They haven't changed their mind on the promotion, which is surprising.

* * *

> _Aug. 18, 2002_
> 
> Are you okay? Agent Coulson, will you at least send me a postcard if she's not okay? Cause it'd be really shitty to pull the great maternal reappearing act to have to bury her again seriously what the fuck is wrong with you people?

* * *

> _Aug. 20, 2002_
> 
> My apologies on my previous email, John. I did not mean... I do not know what I meant to say regarding your father. I will be fine. My first work trip with my new company was more complicated than it was meant to have been which is why I did not return your email.
> 
> I am returning to my previous location. I will live there for the next year.
> 
> Now that you have been promoted to Major, will you be reassigned?
> 
> Natasha

* * *

> _Aug. 25, 2002_
> 
> Sorry I freaked out. Bad week. Civilians got hit, that shit isn't easy to deal with. It's like fucking Serbia again, only with more weaponry. I heard you were in the area when I was in Serbia back in the day, so you probably know what it was like with the civilians there. Weapons manufacturers keep making it easier for people to kill people.
> 
> So. Since we're obviously going to be internet pen pals for a while, we should talk about stuff. What's your favorite movie? Book? Music?
> 
> I like horror movies. Still into comic books, although the new Captain America series really sucks, how many times do they need to reboot that? Johnny Cash's new albums are really good.
> 
> Not sure about reassignment - shit's pretty heavy right now and no one else here can fly the machines we need in the storms. So I guess I stay.
> 
> Glad your "work trip" was okay. Welcome back. Have fun in... can I mention it? Or does that break about a hundred international security violations? Coulson, want to weigh in?
> 
> Have fun, anyways.
> 
> and thanks.
> 
> Major John Sheppard, Esq.
> 
> ps send cupcakes


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is set in 2003, while John is in Afghanistan.

_January 18, 2003_

Natasha sat in front of the computer, waiting. Maybe this wouldn't work, maybe the satellite connection was down, maybe John had better things to do--

The monitor flickered to life, and John Sheppard appeared.

"Hey," he said, surprise audible in his voice from half a world away. "Someone said I had a video call from my cousin?"

"I hope you don't mind," Natasha said, all her carefully prepared words vanishing as she stared at her son. He looked... bad. Bone tired and rough around the edges.

"No, I guess cousin is less traumatizing than mother once removed," John said. He tried to flatten his hair, which only made things worse. "How are you?"

"Good," Natasha said. She shifted uneasily in her chair. "Things have been uneventful."

John raised his eyebrows. "Really? Because you look like I feel and that's not good. Coulson being a hardass?"

"On occasion," Natasha said. "How are you?"

That wasn't what she wanted to ask. She wanted to know everything, all the things he wasn't saying in his emails, all his hopes and dreams that she had no right to know.

And yet she held her tongue as John shrugged, the video pixelating slightly. "Afghanistan in January is, you know. Grey."

"Have you been doing anything interesting?" Natasha asked, frustration growing in her chest. This wasn't going at all like she had hoped.

Who was she trying to fool? She had no right to expect anything from John, not after all these years.

Half a world away, John smiled. "Been branching out. They keep throwing new vehicles at us but the old ones work the best in this weather. Getting my hours in."

"Good."

"What about you?" John asked, his expression quirking into a smirk. "Go on any fun work trips lately?"

"London," Natasha said.

"Sounds fun. Fish and chips?"

"London, Ontario," Natasha clarified.

John made a face. "My condolences."

"It wasn't that bad." Natasha thought about the midnight cross-town car chase, evading the police and the human smugglers, while Clint lay bleeding on the floor of the van. But he would recover, and they'd saved the lives of twenty trafficked young women, so that was a mark in the win column.

"That's good. I hear they have a pretty cool rollercoaster around there."

"We didn't have a chance to take in the sights." Natasha watched him grimace as he rolled his shoulder. An injury, she deduced, and her heart dropped. He had been hurt.

Below the view of the camera, she clenched one hand into a fist. He was a grown man and she had no right to ask him to tell her everything so she could make it better.

Something must have shown on her face, for John frowned. "It's okay, just an old football injury," he said.

Natasha swallowed against the lump in her throat. "You played football?"

"Well, no," John conceded. "But you know. Old 'football' injury."

Which was likely all he could say in an unsecured area.

"I have some of those myself," Natasha made herself say. "Well. Acrobatics injuries."

John smiled faintly. "You're still into that?"

Natasha thought for a moment. She supposed that doing a back-flip off one bad guy's face to roundhouse kick another in the groin would qualify as acrobatics. "Now and then."

"Cool. Hey, if you ever want to go back on the carnie circuit, let me know. We can reboot the Flying Soldatovas--"

The screen pixilated half a second before the sound of the explosion crashed through the speakers. The screen cleared, showing John with his arms over his head while debris fell around him.

"John!" Natasha exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

"I'm fine," John was saying. Behind him, people were shouting. "Coffee break's over. Bye!"

Another explosion in the background, and Natasha only had a moment to reach for the camera before the screen went dead.

Everything was silent.

Natasha's heart pounded in her chest. She was half a world away and couldn't do anything. John had been in a war zone for more than sixteen months, he knew what he was doing.

Her son was being shelled in a war zone and she couldn't do anything about it.

Her hands were shaking as she opened up her computer's email program.

* * *

> John,
> 
> When you are able, please let me know you are okay.
> 
> N.

* * *

She hit send without re-reading. She pressed her hands against her thighs to stop the tremors. Taking deep breaths didn't help.

Other women lived like this all the time, Natasha told herself. Women had been sending sons off to war for all of history. Natasha had lived through several wars, had spent her entire life in danger.

Other women lived like this all the time, Natasha repeated to herself, sending their sons off to war. Forcing herself to stand, Natasha went out into the hall.

She found Clint on the range, testing out a new sniper rifle. She put on the hearing protection earmuffs and waited while Clint blew holes in the target. He turned around to give her a smile, but the expression vanished when he saw her face.

He didn't say anything, just offered her the rifle.

As Natasha settled on her stomach, finger pressed along the trigger guard, she could feel the tremors in her hands vibrating through the gun. She let out a breath, felt all her apprehension and fear settle in her stomach, anchoring her to the ground.

Body still, Natasha let off one round and hit the top left of the target. Adjusting the rifle's position, focusing the scope. She tried again. This time, she hit the centre of the target.

Again.

And again.

Natasha sat up, slipping the trigger safety in place. Clint pulled off his hearing protection and dropped it on the ground beside the rifle. He sat beside Natasha, close but not touching.

"This wasn't just a bad video conference," he said when she had removed her earmuffs.

It took her a moment to speak. "They started shelling his position while we were talking."

"Is he okay?"

"I..." Natasha had to breathe for a moment. Her stomach ached. "I think so. But he had to go."

Clint took her hand; twisted his fingers through hers and squeezed. "He'll be okay. You know he will be."

"How can I know that?" Natasha asked, not able to look at Clint.

"Because you've seen his file, you know what he can do. You know he's a survivor and he's going to come out of this fine, just like all the other stupid situations he's gotten himself into."

Natasha left her weight shift until she was leaning against Clint's arm. "How do you know so much?"

"I'm a genius, didn't anyone tell you?" Clint asked, giving her hand another squeeze. "A certifiable genius."

"A certifiable something," Natasha murmured, letting Clint help her stand. "Your rifle's sight is off."

"My rifle's sight is perfect, no touching," Clint said as he started to pack the gun away. "I have to go see Coulson, something about recent shelling activity in Afghanistan. Want to come?"

Natasha waited until they were in the elevator, far away from prying ears, before saying, "Thanks."

Clint shrugged. "Partners, remember? Come on, Coulson's got this really cool way of tracking American military actions without them knowing..."

As Clint detailed the in-no-way-legal monitoring methods Coulson could access. Natasha felt the nervousness in her stomach settle, something she would never be rid of. Maybe this was what all mothers felt, across time, when they sent their sons off to war.

Ten hours later, Natasha's computer beeped with an incoming email notification.

* * *

> I'm fine - flying evac, waiting to refuel.
> 
> TTYS mom.

* * *

Natasha stared at the email until the computer powered down from inactivity, and only then did she close her eyes.

It was the first time in over thirty years her son had called her 'mom'.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

> _July 3, 2003_
> 
> Hey. So, you'll probably hear about this anyway if Coulson has my file bugged like the crafty bastard he is. I've got some news - transferring out of Afghanistan. I'll give you a hint where I'm going:
> 
> [PENGUINS.JPG]
> 
> That's right, an all-expenses paid trip to McMurdro Base in the Antarctic. It's the only continent I haven't been to. Party.
> 
> j

* * *

> _July 10, 2003_
> 
> Fuck, McMurdo is boring. And fucking cold and fucking stupid and I really shouldn't be saying fuck so much to a lady. Sorry.
> 
> I just... fuck. My life is going to shit and I can't say I'd have done anything else.
> 
> I went out after a buddy, Mike. He was left behind and they told me I couldn't go, and I did anyway. He died, I was there when he died, and I couldn't stop it.
> 
> They gave me a choice, this stupid posting in Antarctica, or a less-than-honorable out. I thought at least this way, there was some hope.
> 
> But it's so fucking quiet I think I'm going to lose my mind.
> 
> Maybe that was the plan. Get me to bounce on a section 8.

* * *

> _July 15, 2003_
> 
> So here we go again, you being undercover and me being chatty.
> 
> I told dad about what happened with my transfer. Well, I emailed him and he got his secretary to bitch me out. I really have missed those special little talks he and I don't have.
> 
> But I don't want to talk to you about him. There's the stuff.
> 
> This place sucks. I fly aircraft for science missions. You know what's interesting about science missions in Antarctica?
> 
> Absolutely nothing.
> 
> I remember when I was a kid, I wanted to go out searching for Captain America's plane, although that was in the Arctic. I thought it would be cool to find it? But jesus, all the bodies in planes I've found in the last few years, what the fuck was I thinking?
> 
> I hope you're okay. You can delete all these emails, they don't mean anything. I'm just fucking pissed off. And it's my own damn fault.
> 
> If I'd left earlier, Mike might still be alive.

* * *

> _July 18, 2003_
> 
> Penguins are some fucked up little buggers.
> 
> Someone left a copy of War and Peace here. I've been so bored I've started reading it. You Russians are messed up.
> 
> (Still) Major J

* * *

> _July 20, 2003_
> 
> Hey Major Sheppard. This is Agent Barton, I work with Agent Romanoff. She's out in the back forty for a while and she wanted me to let you know that "she's fine" and "she'll talk to you when she can" and stuff. If you emailed her in the last month she hasn't seen it yet (and another thing she wanted you to know - Coulson knows better than to read her email).
> 
> If you want me to sneak her any secret messages let me know.
> 
> -Barton

* * *

> _July 22, 2003_
> 
> Thank you for your message, Agent Barton. Nothing to pass along.
> 
> Maj. John Sheppard, USAF

* * *

> _Aug. 10, 2003_
> 
> John,
> 
> I am back in civilization, if one can call it that. Operation successful.
> 
> I am sorry about your friend.
> 
> Would you rather be back in Afghanistan?
> 
> If you are looking to expand your literary background, read the works of Dostoyevsky.
> 
> I am not sure what to say about your transfer. Are you adjusting?
> 
> N.

* * *

> _Aug. 13, 2003_
> 
> I'm not sure that Dostoyevsky would do much for my mental state. It's like the rest of this place, bleak. Have you ever been to Siberia? I think this place is worse.
> 
> Whatever. I think they sent me here because they couldn't justify booting me out, with the rest of my record. If I hand in my resignation now, they win, and I'm not going to let them win because I didn't do anything fucking wrong. If I'd gone after Mike and brought him back alive, they'd have given me a medal.
> 
> So yeah. I'm going to wait the bastards out. At least penguins are a hundred times less likely to kill me in my sleep than Al Quaeda or the Taliban.
> 
> Guess I'll see you Stateside when I crack up.
> 
> xoxox john


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is set in 2004, while John is posted at McMurdo, and also during SG-1's season 7 finale, **Lost City** (aka the one in which Anubis tries to bitchslap Earth and there's a big fight at the South Pole). I decided that John was at McMurdo during this timeframe because fanfic that's why.

* * *

_March 26, 2004_

Natasha stood in the overflowing McMurdo infirmary and wondered if this what a heart attack felt like.

John lay motionless in a tangle of cables and tubes, covered in white bandages tinted with blood. He had been unconscious since the twenty-second, when the event on the Antarctic plains had sent every agency in the world into a panic, secrets behind secrets, deception barely covering up whatever disaster had occurred.

Not even HYDRA was trying to claim responsibility for this one.

John hadn't been on the battlefield; he had been evacuating civilian scientists from around the continent back to McMurdo, when a stray _something_ hit his chopper. He'd been in a coma for four days.

A presence behind her made Natasha shift her attention off her son. "The doctors won't know anything until he wakes up," Coulson said.

Natasha took a steadying breath, then another. "What do we do in the meantime?"

Coulson stepped beside Natasha, his sleeve brushing her arm. "I go figure out what exactly happened. You stay here."

Natasha frowned. "You told Director Fury you needed me on this."

"I told Director Fury you needed to be in McMurdo," Coulson corrected. "I'll see you later."

He wove his way through the battlefield hospital chaos, disappearing into the crowd with his customary skill. Natasha turned back to the bed where her only son lay comatose.

She sat on the side of the bed. For all that he had inherited his father's height, John was too slender for a mother's liking. He'd lost some of the muscle bulk he'd had in Afghanistan, more skin and bones over wiry muscle.

Carefully, to avoid disturbing the IV, Natasha picked up John's hand. They'd managed to get most of the blood off his skin.

He was so cold.

Natasha ran her thumb over the back of John's hand, remembering the times she'd snuck into his childhood bedroom to watch him sleep, remembering the only time he woke up. "The passengers in your helicopter are all fine," she told him. "You took the worst of it. It's a good thing you were out there - the site you'd previously evacuated took a direct hit."

Was it her imagination, or did his eyelids flicker?

"I don't know what happened out there, but it was good that you were here, John. You saved a lot of lives."

Across the infirmary, something beeped loudly, and a great deal of activity centered around one bed. Natasha held John's hand while she watched the doctors and nurses frantically try to resuscitate a dying man.

Twenty minutes later, they stopped trying.

Natasha turned her attention back to John. She wondered what lies they would tell the soldier's mother when she asked how her son died.

But Natasha still had her son, and he wasn't dead yet.

Natasha cleared her throat. "I'm going to tell you a story I used to tell you a very long time ago," she told John. "It's about a young man named Steve Rogers, who wasn't very tall and wasn't very strong, but he never stood down from a fight or walked away from a bully."

Quietly, in the chaos, Natasha recited the story of Captain America she'd told John every night, from the day he was first able to beg for a _'Capn 'Merka!'_ shield. Only this time, Natasha wove in pieces she knew from her days as the Black Widow, about what Captain Rogers had done to destroy HYDRA, to save the lives of men he'd never known.

Natasha supposed it was a nice fairy tale - a man with a good heart able to stand up for what he believed in.

Nothing like that had existed in her world for a long time.

As she ended the story with Captain America crashing the HYDRA plane into Arctic waters, Natasha became aware of Coulson standing on the other side of the bed. He waited until she had finished before saying, "We have to leave."

Natasha knew this was coming, but still, the thought of leaving her son alone in this place made her stomach ache. "Now?"

The look Coulson gave her was all business. She wasn't sure if she'd have been able to deal with understanding. Or worse, pity. "I need to be back in the States for a debriefing as soon as possible."

Natasha looked at John, feeling helpless, and hating it.

"Tasha," Coulson said. "You can't stay."

Natasha squeezed John's hand again.

"General Mikhailov is here."

With a flood of adrenaline, Natasha went instantly into fight mode. Carefully, she laid John's hand on his stomach, and stood.

"Where is he?" she asked Coulson flatly.

Coulson appeared bored, which told Natasha all she needed to know - he was as alert to the situation as she. "In a briefing with the Americans. He'll be there for another half hour. I think it would be best if he didn't know about this."

"That I was here?"

"That Natalie Sheppard's son is here," Coulson corrected, and Natasha fervently agreed. "Let's go."

Natasha nodded, but she couldn't leave, not yet. She covered John's hand with hers, and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. "Get better," she whispered in his ear. "You're strong and I need you to get better."

She kissed his forehead again and made herself back away. It took every ounce of self control to turn her back on her son, to walk away from his hospital bed, to stand tall like this wasn't killing her.

Natasha didn't break down until they were in the plane and heading for New Zealand. Then she bent over, resting her head against her knees and breathing steadily so she would not cry.

Coulson put his hand on her shoulder and said nothing.

John Sheppard woke from his coma two days later.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh, someone just activated the Ancient chair in Antarctica and is off to Atlantis. Don't tell Mother. AKA the one in which we learn that John Sheppard has some lingering issues.

_July 12, 2004_

The first sign that something was wrong came when Coulson interrupted her training routine.

Natasha had been with SHIELD for over two years and in that time, some things had been made perfectly clear: No one messed with Clint Barton's weaponry, Phil Coulson's afternoon coffee, or Natasha Romanoff's training routine. The first few times an agent had tried, Natasha was quick to put them on the floor.

And yet here Coulson was, standing at the edge of the mat.

"Tasha."

Here Coulson was, standing at the edge of the mat, _interrupting_ her.

Natasha shifted her centre of balance, came out of the handstand, and executed a series of twisting back flips to land six inches from Coulson. "What's wrong?" she asked, barely winded.

Coulson held up a letter. "This came for me today."

Natasha took the envelope from his hand, noted that it was addressed to Coulson, and without asking removed the contents. Wrapped around another envelope was a piece of paper.

* * *

> _July 10, 2004_
> 
> Agent Coulson,
> 
> I am being deployed, and I am not certain if I will return. If you are notified of my death, or you do not hear from me within two years, please give the enclosed to Agent Romanoff.
> 
> Maj. John Sheppard, USAF

* * *

 

"What is this?" Natasha demanded.

"I got that ten minutes ago," Coulson told her, turning to leave.

"Why are you giving it to me now?" Natasha pressed, telling herself that John had written the letter to Coulson only days ago, he wasn't dead.

Coulson paused in the doorway. "Because contrary to popular opinion, I have no desire to be involved in your personal life. Major Sheppard deploys in two days from Colorado Springs." And with that, he vanished.

Hands steady, Natasha opened the second envelope.

* * *

> Natasha,
> 
> If you are reading this, I'm either dead or missing in action. I suppose everyone in our line of work has to write a letter like this in the end. I want you to know that this posting is for the greater good, and I hope that I have made a positive contribution to the success of the project.
> 
> Please know that I am glad we could re-connect after all these years.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> John

* * *

That was it.

Natasha read the letter again, then a third time, incredulousness giving way to anger. What sort of project was worth dying for? Who wrote a letter like _that_ when they were walking into the great abyss?

Natasha shoved the letter back into its envelope. This simply wouldn't do. John was still in the country, not even three states away.

The SHIELD airplane hangar was sparsely guarded at this time of day. Natasha had been holding onto a fake flight plane for months just in case. Escape plans fell into place as she moved; Natasha had a plane to steal.

* * *

With a bit of remote help from Clint hacking into credit card records, Natasha tracked John to a coffee shop in Colorado Springs.

John looked up when Natasha dropped into the chair across the table. "Coulson gave you the letter, didn't he?" John demanded.

Natasha threw the envelope on the table. "So that's it?" she asked. "You're just going to vanish into the great beyond and let me wait two years to hear if you die or not?"

John crossed his arms over his chest. "Better two years than thirty, wouldn't you say?" he retorted.

Natasha made herself hold her tongue. They were attracting attention from others in a coffee shop and she was not going to have this conversation in public. "Walk with me," she said, and stalked out of the coffee shop.

She was half-surprised when John followed.

Outside the coffee shop, Natasha turned right. John caught up to her in five long steps, and they headed along the boulevard in silence until they got to a small park. John veered toward a convenient bench and slumped down, favoring his right side. Natasha sat beside him. The only evidence of his Antarctic injuries were a few fading scars along his hairline and down his neck to his shoulder.

But she wasn't supposed to know about that. In the months since he'd woken from his coma, he hadn't mentioned his injuries, and Natasha kept silent.

She'd been watching him without his knowing for decades now; why should now be any different?

"I just..." John finally said, staring out into the distance. "I sent that letter because I wanted you to know in case I didn't come back. I know what it's like to not know. Anyway, wasn't sure if you were out of the country or not so yeah. I sent it to Coulson."

Natasha put her hand on his arm. "I would have liked to say goodbye to you," she said.

John shrugged. "What's there to say? I got a better offer than flying scientists around the ice sheet, so what if it's dangerous?"

Thirty-four years old, and she could still tell when he was trying to bluster his way through a situation. "I meant when you were a child," she said softly.

John's jaw clenched, but he didn't speak.

"I'm sorry I didn't, but I _couldn't_."

"Or what, your KGB buddies would have killed me?" John snapped.

"Yes."

John shot to his feet. "I wouldn't have told anyone--"

"You were three years old."

"That's not the point--"

"You were three!" Natasha interrupted again. "I've been doing this much longer than you have, so don't tell me that you would have been safe if you'd known I was alive."

She hadn't meant for this to degenerate into an argument, but she supposed it was only a matter of time before this fragile peace between them fell apart.

John raked his hands through his hair. "You know what? Let's pretend that I understand that for an instant. So what the fuck was Oklahoma? And don't even fucking start about a vacation, I'm not Coulson."

Natasha took a deep breath. "I needed to get out of Europe for a while," she said evenly. "A project had ended badly and I needed to be where no one would think to look for me."

"Okay, sure," John said. "You hide out at the country fair, sure. Where I just _happen_ to find you--"

"Is that what you think happened?" Natasha demanded. She could see a teenage boy thinking such things, but John was a man now, hadn't he worked this out? Didn't he understand? "You got a postcard from your pen pal about Oklahoma and the circus a month before you ran away, and you decided that was as good a place as any to go," Natasha said.

"How did you know that?" John asked. Natasha saw his expression change when he made the connection he'd missed for so many years. "You were my pen pal?" John demanded. He crossed his arms over his chest, backing away.

"John-"

"You were Janice from Seattle?" John asked, incredulous. "Jesus Christ, we wrote each other for three years!"

This time, Natasha was silent.

"I was fifteen! For three years, I told you _everything_ , how could you do that to me?"

"I had to."

"No, you didn't!" John turned on his heel and walked across the grass. His anger was bleeding out white-hot in every movement and oh, how like his father he was in this moment. "Is this how you knew everything about me? By pretending to be other people I _trusted_?"

"What would you have had me do?" Natasha demanded.

"Oh, I don't know, how about not having my dead mother pretending to be my pen pal!" John rubbed his eyes angrily. "Jesus _fuck_ , you're not normal!"

"I needed to make sure you were safe."

"You know, for someone who was supposed to be dead, you did a hell of a job of butting into my life at every step of the way."

"Has it ever occurred to you that I have enemies?" Natasha demanded. "Very dangerous people who would have no qualms about using you as leverage if they had found out about you?" She stood, growing angry herself, because she _had no other choice._ "Do you have any idea what those kind of people would do to a child?"

John put his hands on his hips, still angry, but focused and thinking now and that was what she needed from him right now.

"John, I had to keep you safe."

"Safe," John repeated. "How many of your people knew I even existed?"

Natasha took a step in John's direction; he didn't move away. She moved closer. "Not many," Natasha said. "A couple of people in charge of the department. My handler was another."

"Ah," John said. His voice changed away from pure anger to something else. "Mr. Leather Jacket? He came to see you just before you died, didn't he?"

Natasha ran her tongue over her lower lip, trying to think what she could possibly tell John. "He wasn't my handler," she said. "Just a..."

"Special friend?" John suggested. His mouth was set in a hard line.

"Yes," Natasha said.

"Whatever," John muttered. "So how many of these bad child-dismembering people are still out there?"

"Not many," Natasha said. "The number goes down every year."

"But there are some left," John finished for her. "Great. They still going to use me as leverage?"

Natasha thought about the people in her past, the living and the dead, and how her living enemies could still target John if things went wrong. "I can't say no."

John shook his head. "This is just awesome news," he snarked. "My life is turning into such a fucking special treat. Why did you even have me in the first place?"

Natasha froze. " _What_ did you just say?"

"How did you think that whole undercover KGB thing was going to end, anyway?" John asked, and there was a ragged edge in his voice that tore at Natasha's heart. "They had birth control in the seventies, I hear that was a thing."

It took two tries for Natasha to speak. "Come over here," she ordered. She hadn't used that voice on John in more than thirty years ago. " _Now_."

Reluctantly, as he had as a child, John dragged his feet over to the bench. Natasha waited until he sat down, resting his elbows on his knees, before she sat next to him.

Had that really been what he'd thought, all these years?

"Don't you _ever_ question why I had you," she told him, still angry, at herself, at her life, at the choices she'd been forced to make.

"You shouldn't have," John said to the ground.

"You're right, I shouldn't have," she said. His shoulders tensed up. "But I did and I wanted you, so stop it."

Slowly, slowly, the tension eased out of his frame.

She'd never meant to have this conversation in her lifetime, but there was no way out of it now. Might as well try some actual honesty, she supposed John deserved that much from her. "You were... getting pregnant was an accident. I'd seen what happened with other agents and I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did."

"Funny, dad always treated me like more of a disaster than an accident."

Silently, Natasha found herself cursing Patrick Sheppard. "Hush, _lapushka_ , your father loves you."

"He's got a funny way of showing it."

"He had a hard time as a child," Natasha said, not sure why she was defending her former husband.

"Yeah, I hear that Grandfather Sheppard was a real child-abusing sonofabitch," John muttered.

Around them, the sun was dipping behind the Colorado mountains, setting the sky on fire in pinks and reds. Natasha put her hand on John's shoulder, wondering if he would ever truly understand what Natasha had tried to do over the years, in keeping him safe, away from her.

"Patrick wanted to do the best by you," Natasha said. "I don't think he knew how to do that, sometimes."

"Yeah," John said. "I always figured he screwed up so much with me that when Dave came along there weren't many mistakes left for him to make."

"I'm sorry," Natasha said, knowing it wasn't enough, would never be enough for make up for thirty years.

John shrugged and sat back, resting his shoulder against Natasha's arm. "Doesn't matter anymore."

"Doesn't it?" Natasha asked quietly, brushing the hair over John's ear. The scars on his cheek from his crash in Antarctica were healing neatly, just a fading memory.

"Can't change any of it."

Natasha leaned against John's arm, watching the sun sink below the horizon. "There are some things I wouldn't change," she said. "Not any of my time with you."

John sighed. "Why the fuck is my life so weird?"

"How do you mean?"

"Like, you're some super spy ninja ballerina chick from Russia who's been killing people for decades, and I'm about to embark on some super secret wacky mission for the US Military."

"That's not weird, it's..." Natasha thought for a moment. "It's just the way our lives are."

John glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

"What we do isn't very different, you and I. We have our orders and we obey them."

John sighed. "I don't know if you've been following along at home, but I'm not all that great at obeying orders."

Natasha thought back across the many decades of her life, and all the choices she had made. "Neither am I," she conceded.

John smiled at the distance. "Guess I come by that honestly then."

When did you grow up, Natasha wondered, trying to reconcile this man with the teenager she'd known in Oklahoma, and the young child in Connecticut. So much the same, yet made so very different by the circumstances.

"So you didn't ask me about my posting," John observed after a few minutes.

"I know better," Natasha replied. "If you'd have been able to tell me about it, you would have done so in the letter. I suppose you won't be able to write."

"Nope."

Natasha ruthlessly pressed her emotions out of her voice. "I'll miss you."

In the twilight, she felt John slide his hand down to grasp hers briefly. "Yeah, me too."

"Thanks for giving me chance to say goodbye."

John bent down and kissed the top of her head. "Thanks for coming out here to say it, mom."

It was the second time in thirty-two years that her son had called her _mom_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone's been making a family video... (end of Stargate Atlantis Season 1 - Letters from Pegasus).

_Jan. 12, 2005_

The video, not identified as anything particular, was waiting in her inbox when she powered up her computer.

Natasha set down her coffee cup, mentally girding herself for another day of paperwork while Nick Fury decided on her next undercover mission. He still wasn't speaking to her again after her little stunt in Hong Kong.

Natasha expected that the video could be many things; SHIELD paperwork, or the random baby goats Clint had been sending her all week.

She was completely unprepared when the video clip opened on John Sheppard's face.

Natasha made an undignified squeak, setting her mug down with too much force and spilling coffee everywhere, but she didn't care, it didn't matter. John was alive. Six months later and John was alive.

John looked directly into the camera and smiled. He looked tired and worn and even thinner than before, years and responsibility weighing on his shoulders. But he was smiling.

"So, hey," he said. His voice was rough and low, so different from the happy little boy Natasha still carried around in her memories. "It's me, John, your... uh, John."

Natasha curled up in her chair, never taking her eyes from the computer screen. Her chest hurt with something she didn't want to identify.

"I'm still kicking, which is better than some," John said, losing the hint of humor in his voice. "We've had a tough time of it, but mostly we're okay."

Which translated to, _we've lost people and I couldn't save them_.

"If your security clearance is anything like Coulson's, I can't go into details," John went on. "But, pretty early on, we lost the military commanding officer, so I've been the ranking officer around here for the balance of the time." He made a face. "You can guess how well that went down with the Marines."

On screen, John rolled his shoulders, that mix of pride and faint embarrassment she remembered from Oklahoma.

"But things are interesting. Not like Afghanistan. And not like Antarctica. Just... different."

He paused, his eyes losing focus for a moment.

"I'm not entirely sure when we'll be coming back," he said carefully, and Natasha knew that tone well, trying to work some information around an important cover story. "But I wanted you know that I'm doing okay, and that, you know. Sometimes I think of you."

He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish and embarrassed, and Natasha pressed her hand over her mouth so she wouldn't make a sound. She was not going to cry.

"So yeah, this is the place," he continued, waving a hand at the room around him. Natasha took in sweeping walls, soft colors, nothing at all like the secret bunkers or underground lairs Natasha associated with such secrecy. "Not bad, a bit of a fixer-upper, but once we got rid of the dead plants--"

Into the frame burst a man, wearing a jacket similar to John's, save for the Canadian flag on the shoulder. "The plasma ducts on the tower level are making weird noises, I need you in the chair now--" the man said rapidly.

John glared. "What's wrong with you, I'm filming a video!" he exclaimed.

"This is important--"

"You talked for like a fucking hour, McKay, I'm trying--"

"Does your American English have a different definition for _important_? Do you want the ZPM to start a feedback loop with the naquada generator--"

John jabbed the man in the ribs, eliciting a loud "ow!" and a subsequent silent accusatory glare. John pointed at the camera. "I am recording a video for my cousin Nat," he said through clenched teeth. "Who doesn't have my security clearance."

The man McKay looked at the camera as if he'd never seen one before. "Oh. Hi, Sheppard's cousin Nat." He frowned. "You never said you had a cousin."

John rolled his eyes. "Everyone has cousins, even me."

"But you never said you had a cousin," McKay pressed.

"Because I share so much about my family life?" John demanded. He took McKay's arm and manhandled him out of the shot. "I'll be there in ten minutes, don't blow up my city!"

"No promises!" McKay yelled. John cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, and posed once against in front of the camera.

"As I was saying," he said calmly, and Natasha couldn't stop from smiling at his demeanor, "This is a nice place. Good people, really good." He paused. "I made the right call in coming out here," he said, suddenly serious. "I needed to come out here. You know how it is, sometimes you don't think you've made the right call, but in the end you see that you did." He nodded. "So, I'll try and make it home, and I'll let you know when I do."

He smiled again, the expression never reaching his eyes, before walking over to the camera. He reached up, then backed up and bent over so his face filled the entire shot.

"That last bit wasn't some kind of historical family commentary, by the way." He blew a kiss at the camera and the screen went dark.

Natasha took a shaky breath, feeling like she could properly breathe for the first time in six months.

John wasn't out of the woods yet, but he was alive and he was doing _well_ and he was a fighter, a survivor, and she could believe that she would see him again one day.

And because she was Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow, who never let anything escape her attention, she opened the video again to see if she could find any hints as to John's location and those unfamiliar devices the man McKay mentioned, a "zed-pee-emm" and "naquada".


	7. Chapter 7

_Feb. 2, 2008_

Into the air of the wrecked apartment, a ping sounded. Natasha sighed without opening her eyes. "I have to get that."

"No, you don't," Clint said, his face pressed against the pillow.

"It might be important."

Clint shifted his weight, effectively pinning Natasha in place. "If it's important, SHIELD will call," he murmured into her ear. "Go the fuck to sleep."

Natasha blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the soft light in the room. She wasn't a great organizer in the first place, but now the room looked as if...

...as if two perfectly matched assassins had battled to the death.

Well, a little death, anyway.

Natasha smiled against Clint's hair. She ran her hand along his spine, feeling the muscle and bone beneath his skin, warm and very much alive.

"You're not sleeping," Clint said, voice slurred. "Sleeping is the part where you do nothing for like, hours at a time."

Natasha slid her thigh down Clint's side, noting with satisfaction how he tensed against her. "Do you really want to sleep?" she asked, putting smug doubt into her tone.

Clint sighed. "You're not going to leave me alone until you check your email, are you?"

"No."

With another sigh, Clint rolled off Natasha, taking the sheets with him.

Unencumbered by one hundred and seventy pounds of archer, Natasha tried to remember where she'd left her SHIELD laptop. She thought it might have been on the desk, which had been upended at some point in the evening.

She was going to be feeling those particular bruises for days.

A quick search in the dim light unearthed the laptop. She slid back into bed, a momentary tussle with Clint for custody of the blankets, then settled in to check her inbox, brimming as usual with work emails.

This one was different.

* * *

 

> _Feb. 2, 2008_
> 
> Dad's dead.
> 
> -john

* * *

 

Natasha may have made a sound, because Clint was suddenly wide awake. "What happened?" he asked, sitting up.

Natasha just looked at him, mouth open.

"Nat?" Clint asked, his alertness softening into alarm. "What's wrong? Is it John?"

Natasha shook her head. She let Clint move the laptop around so he could read the message.

"Oh." He frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm fine," Natasha said. Her head was empty, but that was because John had lost Patrick, wasn't it? "I'm worried about John, I'm fine."

Clint cupped her cheek in one strong hand. "Nat--"

Natasha pulled away from him, crawled off the bed, stood. She couldn't be still, she had to do something, she had to keep moving. "I'm fine," she insisted.

Clint came after her, caught her by the arm and pulled her into an embrace. She only tried to get away for a moment before her brain caught up with her body and she went still, letting Clint hold her, skin on skin, in her darkened apartment.

"Patrick's dead," she whispered.

"I know."

"I don't understand."

Because she didn't, not at all. Intellectually she knew Patrick Sheppard was, _had been_ , nearly seventy, but whenever she thought about him over the years, he'd been the brilliant, vibrant thirty-year-old man she'd married on a long-ago Mayday in a long white dress with flowers in her hair.

The man who had once been the Widow's husband was dead.

Clint held her for a long time.

* * *

 

> _Feb. 3, 2008_
> 
> John, I am sorry for your loss.
> 
> -N

* * *

 

> _Feb. 4, 2008_
> 
> I'm back for the funeral. It's tomorrow.
> 
> Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe you shouldn't come to the funeral. You know. Because you've been dead for nearly forty years.
> 
> -js

* * *

 

> _Feb. 5, 2008_
> 
> Fuck. My. Life.
> 
> You know what's fucking awesome? Having every single fucking person who ever knew your dad look at you like you're some kind of fucking pariah when you walk into the man's funeral.
> 
> Best one yet? Dave's the chief fucker here.
> 
> I'm sending you this from a mobile phone. I'm typing you email on a mobile phone that any civilian can buy. What the fuck is this, Star Trek?
> 
> I'm going to send you a horse. You remember we had horses, dad kept some around.
> 
> john
> 
> (why do I even sign these? you get any emails from your other mystery assassin spy children?)
> 
> (don't answer that)

* * *

 

> _Feb. 5, 2008_
> 
> attachment: [img-432.jpg]
> 
> that's ronon by a horse. I work with ronon. gotta jet, work just interrupted dad's funeral why the everloving fuck can't I get a day off

* * *

 

> _Feb. 8, 2008_
> 
> Dad is buried in the cemetery in New Haven, right next to you. I thought he'd want to be buried next to stepmother Amanda, but seems she was cremated and is interred up with her family in Maryland.
> 
> I went to the gravesite. I mean, he's buried right next to you and I never told him you were alive, how could I tell him that? And now it's too fucking late to tell him anything.
> 
> I'm shipping out of Colorado Springs tomorrow afternoon. I'll talk to you when I get back dirtside, whenever that will be.

* * *

This time, when Natasha broke into the hanger, Coulson was waiting with the ignition codes in his hand.

"Tell Clint he's a son of a bitch," Natasha said, punching in the codes with more violence than necessary.

"That won't surprise him," Coulson said. "Tasha, be careful."

"What's there to be careful about?"" Natasha demanded. "It's Colorado Springs, not Beirut."

"You lose your objectivity around John Sheppard," Coulson said. Natasha didn't reply. "Don't do anything you'll regret."

"Too late," Natasha bit out, and closed up the plane door to start the taxi to the runway.

* * *

Using GPS and a gross abuse of SHIELD technology, Natasha tracked John's cell phone to a bar in Colorado Springs. The room was dim and loud, and the chaos didn't subside as Natasha walked through the doors.

Her mental alarms went off in ways they hadn't in years. There were soldiers and civilians, friends and spouses, and everyone in the room presented to her as a potential threat.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up as a man passed her, a large black man wearing a hat pulled low over his brow. He looked at her curiously, but she kept walking.

Part of her mind screamed _not human_ and that wasn't possible.

John was seated in a booth at the back of the bar, a beer in his hand and a storm brewing in his expression.

Natasha stopped by the table but didn't sit down. "John."

"Natasha." John gestured at the door. "I see you met Murray."

Natasha looked over her shoulder. The large black man was talking with a sandy-haired military man, around John's age. "He doesn't look like a Murray."

"English pronunciation of his name." John took a long pull on his beer. "What do you want?"

"Can I sit down?"

John shrugged. "When has anything I've ever said stopped you?

So it was to be that sort of night. Natasha sat where she could keep an eye on the room, but close enough to John to speak without being overheard. "I'm sorry about Patrick," she said.

"Yeah, I got that from your similarly worded condolence email," John snapped, turning back to his beer. "Is that all you came out here to say? 'Cause if it is, I've got to leave early tomorrow. Can we wrap this up?"

Natasha took in a breath, defensive anger starting to stir in her head. "Why are you angry at me?" she demanded.

John drained the last of the liquid from his bottle and set it down hard on the table. "Do you know what Dave thought?" he asked. His voice was crisp and precise, a sign that this was not his first beer of the evening. "Why I came back for the funeral? The _only_ reason I came back?"

Natasha shook her head. She had never met Dave Sheppard, only seen the boy from a distance when he was with John.

"He thought it was because of the _money_ ," John said. "Like the only reason I'd come to dad's funeral wasn't to say goodbye or any shit, but for money." He clenched his jaw. "You know, it doesn't matter, does it? Dad's still dead."

"John," Natasha tried, reaching for his hand. When her fingers touched his wrist, John jerked back, startled, then got to his feet and walked through the crowd to the bar.

Natasha let out a shaky breath. Couslon's words echoed in her head, _you lose your objectivity_ and he wasn't wrong. Coming here to see John, so soon after Patrick Sheppard's funeral, had been a bad idea, and there was no way Natasha could have done anything differently.

John came back to the table holding three beers. He put two in front of Natasha and went back to slump in his chair.

"What's this?" Natasha asked, looking at the American beer with distaste.

"It's on special. Come on, catch up." John took a swig of his beer.

Because it gave her time to think, Natasha picked up a bottle and drank the entire thing without coming up for air. When she put the empty on the table top, she found John staring at her.

"I don't know if I'm impressed or horrified," he said.

"American beer is what we give children and the elderly in Russia," Natasha informed him. She picked up the next bottle. "Next time, get vodka. This is disgusting."

"Fine." John picked at the label on his bottle. "So, can we talk about anything else?"

"Like what?"

"What have you been up to?"

Natasha let her gaze drift to the dance floor, where Murray's sandy-haired friend was chatting up a dark-haired woman. "Nothing I can talk about."

"Sound exciting." John followed her gaze. "That's Cam Mitchell, I was in flight school with him back in the day. And," he added, a hint of amusement in his voice, "That's his C.O.'s daughter."

"He likes to live dangerously," Natasha observed.

"And you?"

"And me what?"

"Any 'living dangerously'," and John put finger quotes around the words, "In your life?"

Natasha glared.

"I see," John said. "I should have guessed it."

"What are you talking about?"

John took another drink. "You and Coulson. I can see it."

Natasha frowned at John. "No."

"Why not? I bet he's just as interesting out of the suit."

"I'm pretty sure he sleeps in the suit," Natasha said. "Not Coulson."

"So who?"

Natasha pursed her lips. John was asking an honest question, maybe she could answer and it not be a disaster. "My partner, Agent Clint Barton."

"Ah," and John's voice went back to that edge of anger. " _Clint_."

"Yes," Natasha said, her own irritation pushing her voice low. "Agent Barton and I have worked together for some time now."

"No, I get it," John said. "Cute little his-and-her spy outfits in the closet, that must be nice."

"Stop it," Natasha said, her words nearly drowned out as the music increased in volume. "Agent Barton is a good agent and a friend."

"I bet he's extremely skilled at watching your back," John said, heavy on the innuendo, and everything he said made Natasha more furious. What was _wrong_ with John?

"He has saved my life more times than I can count," Natasha said, leaning forward so John could hear her under the music. "He's the only reason I'm alive."

"Oh, _good_ ," John said, sarcasm dripping off every word. "Tell me, what's this paragon of virtue and virility like?"

It was only because John was pissing her off that she snapped back, "He's cocky and a smartass and an excellent shot, and he never leaves anyone behind." She pressed her hand to the tabletop. "Sort of like you."

John sat up so fast he nearly overbalanced. His eyes went wide and Natasha didn't understand, tried to review what she just said to see what had set him off. But then John's eyes narrowed with anger. "I have a great idea," he snapped, and it took Natasha a moment to realize he was speaking in accented but perfectly understandable Russian, "You just _stop_ bringing all this Oedipal shit down on my head. Stop comparing me to your boy-toy of the week, stop making me manhandle you around a circus ring and go back to pretending you're just _anyone_ , stop it, okay?" He pushed his beer away. "You're my mother, can't you just act like it for once?"

Without waiting for a response, he stumbled to his feet and headed out the back door.

Natasha stared after him, unable to move, unable to think beyond what John had just thrown on the table. Was that what he thought?

The chaos of the room swirled around her, unidentified threats pulling at her attention, while John's words sunk in. She didn't understand. She'd always treated him as exactly what he was - her son, be it at three years old in Connecticut or at fifteen in a back-lot circus. She supposed the comparison to Clint might have been less than appropriate, given that Clint was younger than John by a year, but John couldn't know that.

 _You lose your objectivity_.

No matter what, everything she'd tried to do with John was only to keep him safe.

She tried to remember what had happened in Oklahoma. At first, she'd been terrified John would discover know who she was. Whatever had possessed her to write a pen pal letter with actual details of what she was doing? Her time in the country was making her careless. But John hadn't made any indication he recognized her. She'd kept her distance for a few weeks, until the man in charge of the animals started making unsubtle sexual advances towards her son. John had only been fifteen and rather innocent in his American way. That was the only reason Natasha had asked the circus manger to pull John into the show itself.

Everything she did was to keep him safe. Everything.

John still hadn't reappeared. Natasha made her way over to the bar, waiting until the bartender had a moment to spare.

"What can I get you?" the woman asked.

"Vodka," Natasha said wearily.

The woman reached for a shot glass, but Natasha held up a hand. "Bigger."

Raising an eyebrow, the woman set a tumbler on the bar. "Ice?"

"No."

"Noted." The bartender poured two shots into the glass, took another look at Natasha, and poured in two more. "Twist?"

Natasha just dropped a twenty on the bar and took her drink back to the table. It tasted unremarkable, and Natasha missed the burn of cheap vodka she'd snuck as a teenager, drinking in the hills around the Department X compound, wearing someone else's black leather jacket and smoking cigarettes and listening to her only friend in the world read stories from the propaganda papers.

She'd been fifteen then, already a killer of men. They'd tried to make her into a weapon, their weapon, only somewhere along the way they lost control of her and didn't realize it for decades.

_Objectivity._

After another twenty minutes, John came back inside. His eyes were slightly red, but other than that he appeared composed. Natasha looked at him over the rim of her glass and said nothing.

John sat. "I didn't mean to say that."

Natasha sipped at the tasteless alcohol, feeling tendrils of warmth slide down her limbs. "The fact that you said it in flawless Russian makes me think that you did."

John winced. "Some of the Marines on the project are Russian," he said by way of explanation. "We started talking after I got my field promotion, it went from there. I also speak Spanish, so what?" He paused. "And Dari. Some German. Bit of Arabic."

"No Korean?" Natasha asked. "You've just named off the countries you've been based in. Weren't you in South Korea for a year?"

John sighed. "This stalker mother thing is creepy, by the way. But no, I was only there for a few months and I was mostly supporting transport. Didn't get much of a chance to socialize with the locals." He looked at her glass. "Back on water already?

Natasha handed John the glass, watched him choke on a mouthful of vodka. "It'll do you good," she said as his eyes watered. "Hair on your chest."

John pushed the glass away from him. "You're a horrible mother." But he said it without the anger that had permeated the rest of the conversation.

"I'm sorry," Natasha said. "That you can't hold your liquor."

"Is that a challenge?"

"You think you can drink me under the table?" Natasha asked, opening her eyes wide. "You haven't been on a dry post for the last few years, have you?"

"Hell no, the botanists make something vile and disgusting and about 120 proof."

Natasha archived the data point of _botanists on a secret military post_ , and reached for her wallet. "Vodka or whisky?"

John made a face. "Vodka. And you're calling me an ambulance if I go into liver failure."

"No child of mine will go into liver failure," Natasha said. "Don't go anywhere."

The bartender already had the vodka on the bar when Natasha made her way through the crowd.

An hour later, John's speech was starting to slur and Natasha was feeling a minor buzz. "And then I was like, no, McKay, you can't sell your subordinates on the intranet, I don't care how much they annoy you."

"How many times have they tried to sell him?" Natasha asked.

"They stopped after the first two times; other departments gave them money to keep him." John looked up as sandy-haired Cam Mitchell wandered up to their table, his large friend Murray in tow. "S'up, Mitch."

"Sheppard," Mitchell said with a smile. "We're heading out, see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, probably," John said. "You're not giving Dr. Lam a ride home?"

"Dr. Lam has called a cab," said Murray, his voice low. Something about his precise diction sent a ping along Natasha's radar, something she didn't remember but should have. "This establishment is close to her place of residence."

"That's cool," Sheppard said. "See you tomorrow."

Mitchell hesitated, glancing at Natasha. It was about as unsubtle as could be expected from an American.

"He wants you to introduce us," Natasha told John.

"Why?"

Natasha kicked John under the table. She held out her hand to Mitchell. "I'm Natalie Barton, John's cousin."

In the background, John choked on his drink.

"Nice to meet you, Natalie Barton," Mitchell said, shaking her hand. "I'm Cameron Mitchell. John and I go back."

"So he tells me," Natasha said, smiling brilliantly. Mitchell flushed, and John just shook his head.

"This is Murray," Mitchell said, indicating the tall man behind him. The man inclined his head in greeting.

"So, um, we're leaving," Mitchell said, still smiling at Natasha.

"Not very fast you're not," John retorted.

Mitchell pulled his attention off Natasha. "Whatever, Shep, see you tomorrow." And with that, Mitchell and Murray left, pulling a couple of military men along with them.

"I hate you right now."

"You don't." Natasha patted John's hand. "You want another round?"

"Can we break it up with some water?"

"Amateur," Natasha scoffed.

"No, seriously, how aren't you on the floor already?" John asked. "Is it part of the, you know. The thing."

"What thing?" Natasha asked, waving down a waitress.

"The no-aging ass-kicking thing?"

Natasha waited until the waitress had left before replying, "That is... complicated."

"You'd be surprised what I can handle," John said. "Hit me."

Natasha smiled dryly. "Perhaps some other time," she demurred. She certainly wasn't about to start explaining Department X secrets in the middle of a bar filled with American military personnel.

"I bet not everyone's dead mother says that," John said. He rested his head on his hand for a moment. "It's just..." He looked across the room, taking in the location of certain people as he had been doing all night. Certain people, making sure at all times. Natasha would bet they had at one time been under his command. "Did you love him? Dad, I mean."

Natasha had been waiting for this question ever since she read John's email six days before; ever since he first emailed her when she started with SHIELD. She chose her words carefully. "I liked Patrick a great deal. When I met him, he was a different person than the man he became."

"That was a resounding 'no'."

Natasha picked up her new drink and contemplated the clear liquid. "No, I didn't love Patrick."

"Have you ever loved anyone?" John held up a warning hand. "And you know the kind I mean, none of this 'I love you like a son' crap."

Natasha slapped John's shoulder. "Stop being difficult."

"Make me."

"Don't think I won't."

John rolled his eyes. "Yes, Natalie _Barton_. Answer the question."

Natasha thought about lying to John. He probably expected her to give him some falsehood in place of truth anyway. But the vodka and the discussion of Patrick (who was dead, how had that happened? He had been her husband and she had liked him a great deal), pushed Natasha towards truth.

"Yes, there is someone I have loved."

John nodded. His face was shadowed. "Clint Barton?"

"No," Natasha said immediately. "That's not who I mean. Clint is..."

"He's got your back?" John suggested, knocking back the remains of his drink.

"He is my very good friend." Natasha tried to figure out a way to describe her relationship with Clint, which she herself didn't understand half of the time. "He is one of the best men I know."

John shrugged that away. "So who is it?" John asked. "Anyone I know?"

He'd said it as if it might be a joke, but Natasha must have given something away in her face. John's expression changed.

"Right. James Dean look-alike, talks to little boys on the playground?" John said, voice clipped.

"He needed to speak with me," Natasha said, defensiveness and justification forcing out her words. She was not rational at all, such a short time after Patrick's death. "Without you around."

"Please tell me this wasn't some punk hippie from the neighborhood you were screwing on the side," John said.

"No," Natasha said. She pushed her glass around on the table. "I knew him from before."

She let more slip in that one word than she had meant. John looked down at his hands, but didn't comment.

"What about you? Have you ever loved anyone?"

When John looked up, there was that pain and anger again, only this time Natasha wasn't the intended target. "No," John said, and that was all the answer Natasha needed.

* * *

John was still moving under his own power when Natasha pulled him out of the taxi in front of the row of base housing. He only seemed to notice what was going on when the cab drove away without Natasha.

"Don't you have super secret spy stuff to get back to?" he asked, weaving slightly as he walked down the lane. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"I have some vacation time saved up," Natasha said, keeping a hand on his back so he wouldn't tip over. "I'm not leaving until I know you're all right."

"Just like always," John said. "Where are we going?"

Natasha grabbed the key from John's hand and pushed him towards number fourteen at the end of the row. In spite of the fact that the townhouse was on military property (or perhaps because of it; Natasha could get in and out of a place like this without thinking), Natasha made John stand in the doorway while she checked the rooms for hidden occupants.

"I could have done that," John objected when Natasha finally let him inside. "I know about that stuff."

"You drank half a bottle of vodka, you know nothing," Natasha told him. She locked the door and turned the lights on. "Sit down, I'm going to make you some coffee."

"Don't want coffee," John complained, dropping onto the couch. "I want to go to sleep."

"Fine, water then." Natasha rummaged around in the depressing kitchenette, finding a glass that didn't look too disreputable. "You'll thank me in the morning."

"I don't get hangovers much," John said, addressing his boots, which he was trying to remove. "Except that time with tequila. Tequila sucks."

"Yes it does," Natasha said absently. She took the glass of water back into the sitting room and handed it to John. Seeing as how he was having little luck with his boots, Natasha sat on the coffee table to help.

"So why don't you get drunk?" John asked. "We're not anywhere now, you can tell me, I can keep a secret."

Natasha focused on untying a particularly difficult knot in John's bootlaces. "They experimented on me," she said. "I don't know what they were looking for, or trying to do, but they made me the way I am now." She pried the knot loose and let John's foot fall back to the ground.

There was a silence. "How old were you?" John asked after a minute.

Natasha lifted her eyes to meet John's. "Young. But I was old enough to remember a life before that. It helped me hold on." She pressed her fingers against her thighs, pushing back the memories of many lives. "It helped when things got bad."

John put his face into his hands, pushed his hair back. "Fuck, that sucks."

"It was a long time ago." She handed John the water. "You'll want this, even if you don't get hungover."

John took the glass and drank while Natasha prowled around the room, poking at the generic books on the shelf, the dvds sitting on the television. The anonymity of temporary housing at its most basic.

"You were the only one Dad ever loved," John announced into the quiet.

Natasha whirled around. " _What_?"

"It was only ever you," John repeated. He put the empty glass on the coffee table and leaned back, staring at the floor. "It's like, he married Amanda because he thought he was supposed to, and he kept me and Dave around because it was probably illegal to sell us on the side of the road, but I don't think anything really mattered to him after you died."

Ice squeezed Natasha's heart. "That's not true," she protested. "Patrick moved on--"

"He once asked me why I'd lived when you died," John interrupted. "He was drunk or something and I was eleven and shouldn't have been out of bed but I was, and he asked me why you were the one who died." He took a ragged breath. "And you know, for years I thought that meant that he'd rather me be dead if that meant you'd be alive."

Natasha had no idea what to say. That couldn't have been right, Patrick had loved John so much when he was a baby, had been so happy when he was born, had been so _glad_ to have a son.

"And that's why I never told him about you," John continued, curling his hands into fists. "Because that meant I had you and he didn't, he didn't know you were alive and that was the only thing I had that he didn't."

He pressed his fist against his cheek, his knuckles white with the intensity of his grip.

"But while I was gone I realized that maybe that wasn't what he meant, maybe he just didn't understand why he had to lose you. Maybe he couldn't love me as much as he loved you but I couldn't do anything about that and now it doesn't matter because he's dead and I never told him you're alive and now he'll never know."

And John was crying now, hand pressed over his eyes. Natasha sat beside him, put her arms around his shoulders and rocked him. After a while, Natasha helped John into the bedroom, took off his boots and covered him with a blanket and sat on the edge of the bed until John fell asleep.

Only then did she go back into the living room, sink down onto the couch, and stare at the wall in exhausted silence.

Patrick was dead.

* * *

A knock on the front door the next morning brought Natasha out of the kitchenette. She glanced through the peephole, saw John's friend Ronon, very recognizable from his photograph, and put her dagger back in its ankle sheath.

"Hey," Ronon said when she opened the door. "Is Sheppard up?"

"Not yet," she said.

Ronon looked down on her. Natasha was used to the scrutiny from on high; Nick Fury could give this man some pointers. "I brought breakfast," Ronon finally said.

Natasha held the door for him to enter.

Ronon put the brown paper bag on the small table and crossed his arms over his chest. "Any idea when he'll be up?"

"No," Natasha said.

As if on cue, or more likely attracted by the voices, John stumbled out of the bedroom, holding his head. "The fuck," he said.

"I thought you said you didn't get hungover," Natasha said, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't usually have crazy Russians trying to give me alcohol poisoning," John said. He eyed Ronon warily. "I thought you went home yesterday."

Ronon shrugged, some of the aggression easing out of his posture now that he could see John. "Hung out, did some stuff."

"So why didn't you come over last night? You were right next door."

"Heard voices through the wall," Ronon said. "Knew you had company. I didn't think you'd want to be interrupted."

The comment was without animosity but the implication was clear. John glared at Ronon, then at Natasha. "Jesus Christ and Mary, why the fuck is this my life?" he demanded.

"Go throw up, you'll feel better," Natasha ordered. She turned back to Ronon. "Do you want some coffee?"

Ronon followed her into the kitchenette, looming while she poured coffee into mugs. "You and Sheppard didn't hook up?" Ronon asked suspiciously.

Natasha was very glad John didn't hear that one. "I'm his cousin." She handed Ronon a mug. "Natalie."

"You weren't at the funeral," Ronon observed.

Natasha tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I'm not close to the family," she said. "What's for breakfast?"

Down the hall, faint vomiting sounds came from behind the bathroom door. Ronon ignored them. "Breakfast burritos. Those are good."

Natasha went into the bag and pulled out five wraps. "Are you from around here?" she asked, curious as to the young man's speech patterns. He sounded American, but Natasha was having a hard time placing his mannerisms.

"No."

John stumbled out of the bathroom. "I still hate you," he told Natasha as he went for the kitchen tap. "Like, lots and lots."

"Your friend Ronon brought breakfast," Natasha informed him. "Breakfast burritos. Extra greasy."

John gave her the finger while he downed a glass of water.

"Manners," she reminded him.

"When do we have to be at the gate?" Ronon asked Sheppard. Natasha noted the way John winced at the man's last word. It was likely some sort of code word, she decided, and filed it away in her _John Sheppard's Secret Mission_ memories.

"In a few hours," John said. "You staying for breakfast?"

That last was directed at Natasha. "If you'd like," she said cautiously. She wasn't sure if he wanted her to, after the previous night's revelations.

"Sure," John said. "You can eat Ronon's food."

"She's your guest," Ronon objected. He picked two of the burritos and took a seat at the table.

Natasha and John shared a glance. "Toss a coin?" John suggested.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Sit down."

The burritos weren't bad, and judging from the speed with which John inhaled the food, he was none the worse for wear after the night's drinking.

"Are you two good?" Ronon asked after a few minutes of intent chewing.

"Why wouldn't we be?" John asked, his mouth full of food.

"You looked like you wouldn't be, earlier," Ronon replied.

"We're fine," John objected. He glanced at Natasha. "Are we?"

Natasha considered as she licked hot sauce off her finger. John seemed to be okay this morning, if faintly embarrassed as he always was after a show of emotion. She personally wasn't sure what to make of the previous night's confession, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. She nodded. "We're good."

John grinned at Ronon. "See? Fine."

Ronon appeared wholly unconvinced.

After breakfast, John walked Natasha to the door. "So, um, thanks for coming," he said. "It was good to see you."

"I am sorry for the circumstances," Natasha said, but John shook his head.

"Nothing we can do about it now," he said. "Any of it."

Natasha reached up to touch his chin. "I'm so sorry, John," she repeated. She went up on tip-toe to kiss his cheek, then the other. "Take care of yourself."

John smiled. "You too."

As Natasha walked towards the waiting cab, the lingering emotions of guilt and grief rose up into her throat. She'd focused on John for so long that she had been able to suppress her own emotions, but that wall had been crumbling ever since John had spoken last night.

In 1968, she'd had one mission, and one mission only: Make Patrick Sheppard fall in love with her. Be everything he wanted, laugh at his jokes, make interesting conversation, fulfill his sexual fantasies, give him a child, fit all his societal expectations of a wife so he would trust her and let his guard down.

After four years of marriage, Natalie Sheppard had to die. Because of that, Patrick spent decades grieving her, and John had a lifetime full of resentment and loss.

But they weren't the only ones affected. It had been Natasha's first long-term undercover mission, and after four years away from the constant control and indoctrination of Department X, for the first time, Natasha had disobeyed a direct order, the one that demanded she murder her baby son.

Some orders simply could not be carried out.

She did not regret her actions, but in leaving John with Patrick, she hadn't considered the repercussions of her actions, that John would bear the brunt of all the damage she'd left behind.

It wasn't fair. And there was nothing she could ever do to make that up to John.


	8. Chapter 8

Natasha stood on the edge of the roof, the Pacific Ocean at her feet, and let the wind blow through her hair.

"We should go on vacation more often," she said. Twenty feet to her left, Clint Barton let out a snort.

"We need to work on your definition of vacation," he said. "Starting with the fact that on vacations, I'm usually not hanging off a building staring at nothingness."

"Nor," Coulson's voice came through their earpieces, "Do I have to listen to the two of you attempt witty banter."

"Killjoy," Natasha said. She hopped back onto the roof proper and headed in Clint's direction. "Do you see anything?"

"My eyes are like perfect hothouse flowers," Clint mused, focusing on the ocean. Natasha raised her eyebrows. "Requiring constant attention, daily feeding, perfect conditions."

"You can't see anything, can you."

"Not a damned thing," Clint agreed. He blinked a few times and reached into his kit to retrieve his scope. "And that's the problem."

"You'd think with the US Military blocking off half the shipping lanes outside San Francisco, there'd be something to see," Natasha finished for him. "Coulson, any luck on finding out what happened in Nevada?"

"Negative," Coulson informed them. "The team assigned to analyze data from the destruction at Area 51 in Nevada is not having any success."

"Do we know if the closure off San Francisco is even related?" Clint asked, peering through his specially calibrated scope.

"You think that an Air Force base in Nevada blowing up, a giant fireball in the sky over California, and a naval blockade off San Francisco, all within the space of an hour, aren't related?" Natasha asked. "Are you interested in a bridge I'm selling in Brooklyn?"

"Director Fury wants us to assume that the incidents are connected in case of any developing terrorist activity," Coulson said. "Our contacts overseas haven't noticed any up-tick in chatter with the usual suspects."

"And outside the massive wave surge three days ago, there haven't been any additional oddities," Natasha added.

"That's too bad," Clint said, squinting into the distance. "I was hoping for aliens. You know, Area 51."

"You are such a dork," Natasha told him. "Wouldn't this all be easier if the US Military would just cooperate with us?"

She could almost hear Coulson rolling his eyes. "Because they have been so open to sharing information with us in the past?"

"Yeah, what's up with that?" Clint asked, but the words were distant. "You guys know what's weird?"

"All of this?" Natasha asked, resting her arms on the railing beside Clint.

"The air in that area is moving in odd patterns, the birds are drifting on weird air currents," Clint told her. "Like there's something out on the water that we can't see."

Natasha leaned closer, trying to see what Clint saw. "So maybe whatever it was didn't burn up in re-entry?"

"Possibly."

Natasha let out a frustrated growl. "Coulson, isn't there anything Fury can do?"

"I trust this will go no further than the two of you," Coulson explained patiently, "But Director Fury is not God, nor the President of the United States, and he cannot tell the military what to do."

"What about the World Security Council?"

"This is being described as a purely domestic incident."

Natasha shook her head. "Give me twenty minutes out there and I'd figure this out."

"Sure," Clint scoffed. "I'll go get you a boat. Hope you like to row."

"Watch me."

"Fine," Clint said, putting his scope away. "I'll bring popcorn. That'll be better than Shark Week."

"You hate sharks."

"No I don't."

"Fine, you hate water."

"I do not," Clint snapped, picking up his weapons case.

"There's a tattoo on your left kneecap that says, I hate water."

"You're such a liar."

"Here lies Clint Barton, who hated water."

"Shut up, you can't see anything underwater."

"And the truth is revealed," Natasha said, sauntering across the rooftop. "So you take Nevada, I'll take the naval blockade, and we'll meet back here in the morning?"

Over the wire, they could hear Coulson sigh. "Both of you, take a break. I'll report back with the Nevada briefing information when I have it."

"Yes sir," Clint said, giving a salute that Coulson couldn't see. "Barton out."

"Except for the part where we're still on comms," Natasha said. Her phone started ringing. "Welcome to time off, SHIELD style." The phone's display showed an unfamiliar local number. Wondering if it was one of her contacts, Natasha accepted the call. "Hello?"

"Hey," came a very familiar voice, one Natasha had not expected to hear in San Francisco, not now. She stopped in her tracks. "How's it going?"

"John?" Natasha said, her voice going up in surprise. "Are you okay? Where are you?"

"Just hanging out," John said. He sounded rough around the edges, but happy. "Our mutual friend tells me that you're in Frisco, want to grab a coffee?"

"I am," Natasha said, unable to stop herself. "And yes I do," She looked up at the sky, her eyes stinging oddly. She hadn't seen her son since the events surrounding Patrick's funeral, and it finally hit her how much she had missed him. "Where can I find you?"

John rattled off an address, on the other side of the peninsula. "Can you be here soon? I don't know how much more shore leave we have."

"Yes, I'll be right there," Natasha said. "I'll see you soon."

"Ditto." John rang off, leaving Natasha holding a dead phone in her hand on a rooftop overlooking a large empty expanse of ocean.

Clint slid his sunglasses back into their case. "So, John," he said.

"He said he called Coulson," Natasha told him. There was something in John's language that had set off her attention. "That Coulson told him I was here, that he didn't have a lot of shore leave left."

"That's an odd thing to hear from an Air Force pilot," Clint said.

"It is," Natasha said. This was all too much coincidence: the military blocking off San Francisco shipping lanes after a giant fireball in the sky; the Air Force research base in Area 51, blowing up.

And now her son, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force posted to a very secret mission, appearing in San Francisco on "shore leave".

"Coulson..."

"Play it out, Agent Romanoff," came Coulson's reply through the earpiece. "Run it to the ground, see if there's any connection."

Natasha took in a deep breath, let it out slowly instead of cursing Coulson or quitting SHIELD on the spot. "And what exactly would you like me to report back?" she asked, voice cold.

"Any connections you find," Coulson said, sounding not at all repentant. "Barton, please provide backup."

Clint hesitated. "Not to be a wet blanket," he said, "But it's kind of shitty to ask Nat to go gather intelligence on her own kid."

There was a small click on the line, and Coulson's voice went flat with electronic interference - for their ears only. "You are of course welcome to go back to work and not meet with Col. Sheppard," he said. "If it's not a coincidence, then Col. Sheppard knows exactly what I'll be asking you to do. He is the one who called me for your location."

Clint and Natasha shared a glance. "Fine," Natasha said stiffly. "But I'm not going to do anything that will compromise my position."

"Which is why I'm sending Barton with you." The line shifted again, opening back up to the full monitoring system. "The clock is ticking on your source's location, Agent Romanoff."

Natasha swore in Russian, turning on her heel. "Barton, you on the ground or in the air?" she asked.

"I'll take air," Clint said, falling in step with her. "I know that plaza, there's a good balcony across the street. Keep your ears open."

"This is a bad idea, Hawkeye," Natasha said under her breath, certain that the SHIELD operations centre would hear every word, not sure she cared.

"Yes it is, Black Widow," Clint replied.

A disastrous idea, but Natasha could not give up the chance to see her son.

John was her weakness, and Coulson knew it.

Damn him. Damn herself.

* * *

The fog had started to roll in when Natasha approached the cafe. Across the street, Clint was in place on the balcony, surveying the scene in case this was a trap, in case there was a problem, in case she needed him.

She spotted John first, in profile as he spoke to someone Natasha couldn't see. Natasha's step faltered. It was John, and yet...

He was growing old. Older now than Natasha had ever seen his father, years piling upon years, nearly forty years old.

Natasha's stomach clenched. Her son was growing old and she hadn't aged a day in over fifty years.

Then John glanced around, saw her, and his expression lit up. He lifted his hand to wave her over, and the movement revealed his companions: a woman across the table, and a dark-haired toddler sitting on John's lap.

"What..." Natasha breathed.

Over the earpiece, Clint let out a whistle. "So, do I get to call you grandma, or can I toss babushka in now and again?"

"If you ever call me 'babushka'," Natasha threatened, "I will cut your bowstrings." She put a smile on her face and crossed the fog-tipped courtyard toward her son.

John stood as she reached the table, transferring the boy to his arm. "Hey you," John said, wrapping his free arm around Natasha's shoulders in a hug. She couldn't stop herself from hugging him back.

"I missed you," Natasha whispered in John's ear, knowing the SHIELD Monitoring centre had heard, and hating them all because of it.

Colson cleared his throat. "I'll put your conversation on ears-only," he said. "Barton and myself."

Natasha hummed a light note to indicate she understood. John pulled back to look at her, still smiling. He had more lines around his eyes than last year, a few more grey hairs. "I missed you too."

The little boy made a burbling noise as John bounced him higher on his arm.

"This is Torren," John said. The child could be no older that two years old, Natasha deduced. "And this," John went on, turning to the woman at the table, "Is Teyla Emmagen."

The woman stood, graceful and elegant in spite of her too-large American military jacket and the faded trousers. She inclined her head at Natasha.

Something was going on here, some undercurrent between the woman and John. The apparent ease in John's manner was masking some apprehension, and it took Natasha a moment to realize that John was _nervous_ about this meeting, but not from an intelligence perspective.

This woman was important to John, Natasha could see.

"This is my cousin, Natalie," John was telling Teyla.

"Yes," Teyla said, looking at Natasha with direct frankness. "Ronon has told me of you."

"That's nice," Natasha said, distracted by Torren waving his tiny hand in her direction.

"So," John said awkwardly. "Can you join us for a bit?"

Natasha pulled a chair over to the table and waited until John had seated himself, arranging Torren on his lap, before sitting herself. "How are you doing?" Natasha asked.

John shrugged. He was trying to prevent Torren from overbalancing as the baby stood on John's knees. "Kinda busy. Kinda good. How's Coulson?"

Natasha hid a smirk at the sigh that came over the line. "He's fine," Natasha said. "He sends his love."

"I thought he might." At Teyla's confused expression, John explained, "Coulson is like Natalie's imaginary friend. Like Chuck back home."

Teyla's confusion shifted into wariness.

"It's okay," John went on. "Nat's okay."

"You are certain of this," Teyla asked. Her attention never left Natasha.

"Yup." John stopped Torren from climbing onto the table. "Why are you in town?"

This last was aimed at her. "You know," Natasha said. "San Francisco in the winter. It's the traditional fireball in the sky season."

John grinned. "Yeah, wasn't that something?"

He was bullshitting her and she knew it; also knew that she wouldn't get anything out of him without breaking this casual peace they had between them.

Natasha set her elbows on the table and smiled at John. "How have you been?"

"Fine," John said automatically. A waitress appeared with drinks for Teyla and John and vanished as quickly. "Busy. The usual."

He tried to reach for his coffee cup, but Torren darted in first, nearly upsetting the cup all over the table.

"Here," Natasha said, holding out her hands. "Can I hold him?"

John glanced at Teyla, who nodded after the briefest of hesitations. "Careful, he's wily," John cautioned as he passed the toddler to Natasha.

"So were you," Natasha said, settling the little boy onto her lap. He looked up at her with careful consideration, suddenly serious after his escape attempt from John. "Hello."

Up close, any superficial similarities to John removed themselves - Torren's hair was dark and fine, but curly, and while he had Teyla's eyes, the shape of his facial features belonged neither to Teyla nor to John.

This was not John's son.

Torren reached for Natasha's hair. She deftly pulled the curls out of his tiny hands and shifted him around so his body was braced against hers, one arm around his stomach while she reached for a napkin with the other. "He's adorable," Natasha said to Teyla.

"He is," Teyla said, her alertness softening into a smile.

The boy squirmed while Natasha wiped his dirty nose with the napkin. He wrinkled his nose and said "bah!" while kicking at her leg absently.

"How old is he?" Natasha asked.

"Nearly two," John said, mouth full of mocha.

Natasha pushed Torren's curls back from his forehead, wondering. At that age, John had been speaking in nearly full sentences. Although, Natasha conceded, John had always been far ahead of other children his age; she shouldn't be making assumptions about this child.

"Are you on the same expedition as John?" Natasha asked Teyla.

The woman smiled. "John and I met when he came to the land of my people."

It was an odd way to speak, Natasha reflected, but it nicely hid any details about their meeting.

In her ear, Clint grumbled. "Why am I up on a roof while Natasha gets brioche?"

Natasha resisted the urge to acknowledge his presence by flipping him off.

Torren twisted around in her lap, looking confused. He climbed up on his knees and reached for Natasha's face, poking her cheek.

It was almost as if he was looking for another voice. Natasha pushed that thought away. There was no way the baby could have heard Clint's voice in her earpiece. She was being fanciful.

"John invited me to serve on his team, many years ago," Teyla was saying. "He is my good friend."

"Yeah, she even asked me to be Torren's godfather," John said, ruffling Torren's hair.

"Ah," Natasha said. That explained everything.

Torren grew tired of patting her face. He dropped back to her lap and reached out for the table, seemingly aiming at the pastry.

Natasha reached out to help, but her hand moved past the pastry to the glass of water across the table, and she felt a sense of satisfaction when she picked it up.

It was a thought that was not her own.

Hesitating slightly, Natasha sat back, guiding the glass of water to Torren's mouth, helped the boy take a sip. As she did so, the lingering thirst, which was not her own, eased.

Natasha set the glass on the table and lifted Torren up so she could look him directly in the face. She dismissed her earlier impression that the boy, for his lack of vocabulary, was dim. His eyes were bright as John's had been at this age, seeing everything and understanding, full of delight and interest.

Natasha directed all her attention to remembering Ronon Dex, John's friend. She filled her mind with the man's image, his speech patterns, his posture. And then, in very clear words, she thought, _who is that?_

The boy grinned at her, showing all his baby teeth. "Ronon!" he shouted, bouncing on Natasha's lap.

Natasha glanced up to see John frown, Teyla's expression close off.

No wonder. This child was a reader.

Natasha had heard of such people, had suspected some of such skills. It was one thing to understand people and have experience in reading posture, body language. It was quite another to be able to pry into someone's thoughts and put your own there in return.

To think of an adult as a reader was terrifying, in Natasha's line of work.

The idea of a child with such skill made her anxious for a very different reason. That such a child was beloved by John, filled her with dread.

Now, however, was not the time to indicate any of what she had discovered. Torren was not her mission.

She kissed Torren's cheek, a big noisy smack that made him laugh. "Did Ronon come with you this time?" she asked John, pulling Torren back onto her lap and letting him have another drink.

John shifted in his seat, radiating uncertainty. "No, he's a bit under the weather," John said. "On the mend, though."

"Good," Natasha said. "How long are you in town?"

"Another few hours, then we got to head back," John said. He picked up Teyla's cup without seeming to notice and took a sip of her drink. "I'm glad we could meet up."

"As am I."

Teyla, who had been looking back and forth between John and Natasha for some minutes, spoke. "Who are you, really?"

John's shoulders tensed, but Natasha had known this moment was coming, ever since she had seen the sharpness in Teyla's eyes. John cleared his throat, cast Natasha an apologetic glance, and said, just like that, "Natasha is my mother."

Teyla looked at Natasha, but not with disbelief or even surprise. "You have told us in the past that your mother is dead."

"Yeah, well," John said. "It's kind of complicated."

"And that her name was Natalie."

"It's a nickname?"

Teyla sighed. "I can see the resemblance," she said, absently handing Torren a paper napkin to play with.

John frowned. "Wait, what? You're okay with that? She looks young enough to be my sister."

"She looks young enough to be your daughter, in the way of your people," Teyla pointed out. "You know how old I am, why do you think this would shock me?"

That stopped John cold.

Natasha licked her lower lip as she sat forward. Part of her wished that John hadn't blown her cover on a San Francisco terrace, but mostly her heart beat with unexpected emotions. Since he came back into her life, John had not acknowledged her as his mother in front of anyone besides Coulson, in far darker circumstances.

What stood out far stronger, however, was what the revelation told Natasha about Teyla's place in John's life.

"Teyla," Natasha said quietly. "About this..."

"I will not reveal the contents of this conversation, as I hope you will not," Teyla said.

In Natasha's ear, Clint made a confused sound. "What am I missing, Tasha?"

"Not a word," Natasha said, patting Torren's head as he once again reached for her earpiece.

"Fuck it," Clint said. "Next time you get to meet the in-laws, I'm bringing popcorn and the closed captions."

Torren started squirming, slithered out of Natasha's lap to the ground. He righted himself and started off across the crowded plaza. Teyla was out of her chair in a moment, catching Torren in a few steps and taking his hand as he explored in the fog.

John blew out a quick breath. "He's never going to learn," John said. He sounded worried.

"He's too young to know he's not to wander off," Natasha pointed out. She watched mother and son progress. "You used to get into everything."

John shook his head. "We can't let him."

He was unusually insistent, and Natasha took her eyes off Teyla, now showing Torren a green leaf in a planter in the middle of the plaza. "Are you worried someone will take him?"

John sighed. "Where Teyla comes from? All the time," he said quietly.

Natasha put her hand on John's. From the day John was born, Natasha had lived with the very real threat that someone would take her son because of who his mother was. It was her burden, born from a life as the Black Widow. She would not have thought that her son would one day find himself in the same situation.

"You love her."

"What?" John demanded, startled. He looked at Natasha. "Well, yeah, she's on my team."

"John."

"It's not like that, she's--" John broke off. He took a deep breath. "You remember what you told me last time, about Barton?"

"I do," Natasha said evenly. Clint was going to have a field day with this one.

"Well, it's like that with me and Teyla. She's like the best person I know, you know?"

"Yes."

Clint let out a small chortle. "Oh man, Nat, you think I'm awesome?"

Annoyed, Natasha looked away from John to where she presumed Clint was perched. She couldn't see him, but her eyes picked up something in the encroaching fog, people moving across the plaza like the others, but the thread of movement was wrong, it was with a different purpose, toward Teyla who was paying too-close attention to Torren and not the world around her --

"Hawkeye," Natasha said, and in the next heartbeat one of the men pulled a gun from his pocket and shot Teyla two times in the chest.

"Teyla!" John shouted, already out of his chair, half a step in front of Natasha, running across the plaza but it was too late, Teyla was on the ground and the other man had picked up a screaming Torren, and a plaza of terrified people stood between Natasha and a clean shot.

Noise whooshed over Natasha's earpiece; the conversation opening up into the full monitoring capacity of SHIELD. "I've got eyes on," Clint said, voice clipped. "If I shoot at this angle I may hit the kid."

Natasha made a split-second analysis of the situation. With Hawkeye on the balcony and SHIELD's eyes in the sky, she was in a far better position to track Torren in the fog than John would be. Her skills would be useless at helping Teyla. It was with these key facts in mind that she shouted to John, "I'll get Torren!"

John didn't respond, just skidded to a halt beside Teyla. Natasha didn't stop; kept running after the men who had Torren. They blurred into the fog, rounded the corner of a building, and Natasha had the option between running full tilt around the corner blind; or slowing to do a slower, safer check, and risk losing her prey in the fog.

"Hawkeye?" she demanded as she ran, only a few steps left to decide.

"You're clear," Clint said, and Natasha went around the corner at top speed. The street before her was busy and foggy and Natasha couldn't see her targets.

"A little help?" Natasha demanded.

Across the street, a metal _pong_ echoed weirdly. "They're heading east in a black van," Clint said. "I tagged the van with a transmitter but they're going to ditch at the soonest opportunity."

Natasha was familiar with the common modus operandi of child abductors. Anyone who was willing to shoot a woman in a crowded street would almost certainly have an unpleasant reason for taking the child.

Coulson said, all business, "Satellites are up; the fog is obscuring the visuals but the street overlay and Hawkeye's tracker will help."

Natasha didn't answer as she slid to a halt next to an older model car, one she could break into and hotwire in less than thirty seconds.

"I'm on my way down to street level," Clint announced. "Widow, meet up?"

"Negative," Natasha said. "Let's see if we can cut them off before they transfer vehicles."

"Sort of like Chicago?"

"I was thinking Santiago," Natasha told him. The car door popped open and she slid into the driver's seat.

"Oh goody."

"Black Widow," Coulson said calmly as Natasha fumbled with the ignition wires. "When Director Fury asks me why we are running an unauthorized mission on U.S. soil, what should I tell him?"

Natasha jabbed at the wires until the car engine turned over, and pulled the car out into traffic. "This isn't unauthorized," Natasha snapped. "Where I am going?"

"Right at the next light, down for three blocks. They just turned onto the freeway."

"Affirmative," Natasha said. She swung the car around the corner, ignoring the angry honking behind her.

"I'm mobile," Clint announced. "Where to?"

Coulson told Clint which direction to drive, as Natasha darted in and out of lanes to end up on the freeway at speeds nowhere close to legal.

"Agent Romanoff. Director Fury?"

"It's not unauthorized, it's his directive," Natasha said. Her heart was pounding and her limbs ached with the adrenaline rush. It happened in any mission, even those which didn't involve her son. "You wanted us to find out what happened outside of San Francisco. It's likely that a woman directly involved in the military action was shot point-blank, and her son taken by operatives unknown."

"Understood," Coulson said, with that _you are in over your heads and I'm not going to help_ tone of voice. "I'll let the director know."

Clint snorted. "You're a peach."

"Don't ever call me that again."

Natasha was listening to the hum of traffic, looking for the black van. She knew the mission she had assigned herself - find Torren and bring him back safe. But to what? "Did anyone call paramedics to the plaza?"

Coulson was silent for a minute. "Yes," he finally said. "Paramedics have been dispatched and will be on-scene in minutes."

"Our people should be there to monitor," Natasha added.

"The logistics are under control." Which was Coulson's way of telling her to do her job; he would do his.

She wanted to scream that this was different, this had to do with John and she had to get his godson back safe, she had to, after so many years and so much that she'd missed in his life, she could not let him down now.

"Black Widow."

Natasha slammed a lid on her emotions, pulled the cloak of the Black Widow around her. Coulson was right. The best way she could help John was to _be_ the Black Widow, the finest creation of Department X, the best operative SHIELD had even seen. Find the van, extract the child, destroy the enemy.

There was nothing Natasha could do for Teyla. John would have to see to that.

"I'm turning off the freeway," Clint said. Natasha checked the highway signs. "How we going to do this?"

"Our best chance is when they stop to change vehicles," Natasha said. She changed lanes to get to the exit.

"They might have backup," Clint objected. "Might be better to get them before the change-over."

Natasha considered. The fog might mask their activities, giving Clint's plan better play. "Did you happen to see if there were any other operatives in the van?"

"Nope. But with a kid, they might not - one of the ones on the ground got into the driver's seat, that's more likely if there were only two of them."

"The target vehicle is slowing," Coulson said.

"I'll distract," Natasha said, cutting down a back alley. "Hawkeye, can you get behind the van?"

"Already there," Clint said. "Vehicle is in sight."

Natasha sped up, turned a corner, and there was the van. She took a deep breath. "When you get the kid, think really hard about me."

"What?" Clint asked, understandably surprised.

"Big happy pictures of me," Natasha said. "The kid's a reader."

There was no more time for explanations. Natasha let the wheel turn, clipped the van at top speed, overcompensated as she slammed on the brakes. The car did a one-eighty, brakes screaming, until the nose of the car slammed into a lamp post.

Natasha had time to brace for impact, which at that speed only meant that she could turn her head and hope she didn't break her neck. The angle of the crash slammed her into the door, her arm up to cushion her head from the blow. The sudden stillness of the car was worse than the impact, too similar to unconsciousness. Then sound rushed back in and Natasha was fumbling for the door latch.

The van had pulled to a halt behind her as she had cut off access to the street. The driver emerged, screaming in words Natasha couldn't parse as she stumbled free of the wreck.

She lifted her hand to her head and wondered at the blood she felt, wondered if she was hurt worse than she expected. But she was the Black Widow, she had been made for this. They'd manipulated her body and her mind into maintaining control at all times in such situations.

"--the fuck is wrong with you, bitch?" the driver was screaming at her. "Get the fuck out of the fucking road!"

Natasha let tears rise to her eyes and made her shoulders shake; the first stages of hysteria. "I didn't see you, what happened? Oh my god, my dad's car!"

The driver brushed past Natasha, heading for the car. The man was actually going to move the vehicle out of the road, Natasha realized in disgust. It would be so much more professional if he just turned the van around.

"Can you help?" Natasha asked, grabbing the man's arm. He didn't immediately shake her off, which meant that he didn't think she was a threat.

Noise in her earpiece; a muffled "Hey!" and loud thumps.

As the driver reached the car, Natasha grabbed his jacket with her free hand. Kicking out his knee, she slammed his head into the car frame and he dropped like a stone. Natasha used the momentum of his falling body to push him into the car, tucked his legs inside, and closed the door behind him.

"Clear!" Clint said, as Natasha ran toward the van. Clint was climbing into the driver's seat, and Natasha jerked open the passenger door and barely had time to dive inside before Clint had the van in reverse, narrowly missing the other operative, now lying in the middle of the street.

To the untrained eye, it looked like a hit and run.

"Torren?" Natasha demanded.

"In the back," Clint said tersely. "Coulson, I could use some eyes on the street."

Natasha climbed over the seat into the back of the van. The little boy was huddled in the corner, tears on his cheeks and his eyes wide with fear. As soon as he saw Natasha, he reached for her with grasping hands.

"You're safe," Natasha told him, wrapping him in protective arms. The van lurched, and Natasha fell onto her side with Torren in a tight hold. "You're safe now and we're going to take you back home."

The boy took deep snuffling breaths but didn't cry, which Natasha would have thought odd had she not been subject to an overwhelming outpouring of emotions that could only be Torren's; panic and anxiety and overwhelming fear.

It took over sixty years of mental training, but Natasha closed off her own emotions and focused on warm, calming thoughts. "You're safe, baby," she whispered in Russian, cupping the back of Torren's head with a bloody hand. "Shh, the bad men are gone, you're safe."

An image of Teyla falling to the ground popped into Natasha's head.

Natasha hugged Torren tighter. "Your mommy's going to be okay," Natasha promised, praying to the gods she didn't believe in that she wasn't lying. "I'm going to take you back to her and John right now."

Outside the van, distant sirens sounded. Natasha held Torren in her arms and listened to Clint curse.

Torren began to sob.

* * *

Two hours later, Natasha walked into San Francisco Memorial hospital. The assistant at the desk hadn't been able to give her any information on Teyla's condition, but had pointed out where Natasha could find the waiting room for the trauma centre.

Natasha hefted her large backpack and walked as evenly as she could towards the elevators. She hated hospitals; everything in them reminded her of death and losing control.

Natasha got onto the elevator with a crowd of other people, the sick and the stressed and the panicked, and she just hoped she could get to the right floor without any screaming.

Clint and Coulson were quiet in her ear, and all she could do was wait for the elevator to rise.

She was among the last to get off the elevator, took a left towards the waiting room area, her spine aching with the weight of the backpack. _Almost there,_ she thought.

There were three men in the enclosed waiting room, she could see through the glass square in the door. One was Ronon, identifiable by his hair and his height. The other man was not familiar, but the third was John, pacing back and forth with nervous energy.

Taking a deep breath, Natasha pulled open the door to the waiting room and stepped inside.

The unfamiliar man stopped talking mid-sentence, looking at Natasha with confusion. Ronon didn't move. John whirled around, his clothes still covered in blood. The momentary flash of hope in his eyes died when he saw her with empty arms.

"John--"

He crossed his arms over his chest, hunched in on himself. "You were supposed to bring Torren back," John said, voice on the edge of panic. "Why didn't you bring him _back_?"

Natasha glanced at Ronon. "Is this room secure?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"Sheppard, what is going on?" the other man demanded. When he spoke, Natasha recalled his voice and his face, absently labeled him _McKay_ as she slid the backpack carefully off her shoulders and placed it on a table.

"Natasha," John said, pleading, but he got no further because Natasha has undone the zipper on the overly large backpack, pulling open the flap to reveal the curly-haired baby tucked inside, his dark eyes bright with delight at the game Natasha had told him they were playing.

"What the fuck?" McKay demanded. John dove forward, pulling Torren out of the backpack. He hugged the boy tight, putting a hand on the back of Torren's head and letting out a very shaky breath.

"He's fine," Natasha said, half-pushing John into a chair. Torren had wrapped his arms around John's neck and was making a soft burbling noise that Natasha was beginning to understand was his way of speaking. "A couple of scrapes, that's all. I had to get him in here without anyone seeing, in case you were under surveillance."

John shifted Torren around so he could look at the boy, ran his hand over the baby's head, felt his limbs and his chest. A gamut of emotions crossed John's face, ending with a heartfelt smile. "Hey, buddy," John said, touching Torren's cheek. "You've had an adventure, haven't you?"

"An adventure?" McKay nearly shouted. "He got grabbed by kidnappers in the middle of an American city and saw his mother get shot--"

"Rodney!" John interrupted, glaring at the man. In his arms, Torren was looking at Rodney with a solemn expression, his lower lip trembling.

Rodney's expression changed from anger to terror. "Torren, I'm sorry, I'm just worried about your mom, I promise, everything's going to be okay, don't cry."

"Uncle Rodney's right," John said forcefully, bouncing Torren a little. "Your mommy is with the doctors. Doc Keller came all the way out here to make sure mommy's going to be fine, okay?"

The threat of tears receded slightly, although Torren did grip John's shirt tighter.

"What happened?" Ronon asked Natasha, arms crossed over his chest menacingly.

"An excellent question," Rodney snapped, rounding on Natasha. "For starters, who the hell are you?"

Natasha was unimpressed by the man's bravado. In the four years since she'd received John's email video from his secret mission, she had done a little research. One of her contacts in Siberia had spent some time working with a Doctor Rodney McKay, who had been described by most as a genius and a complete asshole.

An asshole who vanished into a secret military mission at the same time as John had.

"Sheppard's cousin Natalie," Ronon contributed. "Except she's not."

Natasha stayed in her stare-down with Rodney. "My name is Natasha Romanoff. I'm an agent with the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. I was meeting with Col. Sheppard when the situation occurred."

"You call being shot twice in the chest and having your kid grabbed a 'situation'?"

John made hushing sounds, but at Torren or Rodney, Natasha couldn't tell. "You are aware that Torren understands you, right?" Natasha demanded. She had spent two hours with the boy in her arms, with him poking and prodding at her thoughts in an innocent attempt to understand the world, and it was understandable if Natasha was feeling a bit protective.

John stood up and stepped between Rodney and Natasha. "Everybody gets to calm the fuck down," he said mildly. He patted Torren's back in reassurance. "And we get to talk in calm voices like fucking adults, so Torren doesn't bring this up in therapy in ten years. Are we good?"

Rodney jutted his jaw defiantly, but he deflated when John leveled up his glare. "Fine," he muttered. Natasha didn't bother to respond.

"Now," John said in the same Stepford Wives tone, "Natasha, can you please explain what happened with Torren."

Natasha described her pursuit of Torren in clinical terms. She kept most of the obvious violence out of the description, although she noted that John winced when she used the phrase _threat incapacitated_.

"And then we removed Torren to a safe location while our agents secured the operatives and started the trace on their communications," Natasha finished. Torren was looking at her, his finger in his mouth, and she couldn't help herself from reaching out to touch his arm. "We got here as soon as we could."

Rodney was frowning. "Who the hell is 'we'?"

Natasha tossed her hair over her shoulder, ignoring the pounding headache from the car accident. "Myself and my partner."

"Barton?" John asked, resigned.

At the mention of Clint's name, Torren perked up. The boy had been quite entranced by Clint when they were in the safe house, as Clint had distracted the boy with stories and magic tricks while Natasha washed blood off her face.

"Yes," Natasha said. "Clint was with me."

Apparently deciding that Clint was a more interesting mental image than whatever John had in his head, Torren wiggled and reached for Natasha, nearly flopping out of John's grip.

"Whoa, partner," John said, making a last-minute save and handing Torren to Natasha. "Why am I not surprised that he likes you?"

"Maybe because you like me," Natasha pointed out, kissing Torren's cheek with just a hint of smugness. "And I'm probably not projecting as hard as you are."

Rodney's eyes went wide. "You told her about that?" he demanded.

"No, McKay, I didn't," John snapped. "She gets it."

Natasha tuned them out for the moment, filling her head with warm and safe images for Torren to play with. She could feel his mind meeting hers, touching on her memory of telling John a Captain American bedtime story.

"Once upon a time," Natasha said softly, rubbing Torren's back as he put his head on her shoulder, "There was a young man named Steven Rogers, who wasn't very big and wasn't very strong, but he always stood up to bullies and never walked away when someone was scared."

Rodney and John continued to bicker, while Ronon loomed in the middle of the room and tried to hide his concern.

"Nice story, Nat," Clint interrupted in her ear. "But I've got an Air Force officer making his way down the hall. FYI."

Natasha never broke off her story as force of habit made her angle her body between Torren and the door. Considering her afternoon, she wasn't letting her guard down again until John himself said it was time to stand down.

The door opened and in walked a man in Air Force blues, and Natasha's mind snapped from fairy stories to a screaming rush of tension. She knew that man. Decades had intervened and he was older than when she had left him in that warehouse in Krakow, but she knew him as well as he would know her, and she hadn't aged a day in fifty years.

John snapped to attention, said "General O'Neill," but the man was scanning the room and looked right at Natasha and his eyes moved over her without any recognition whatsoever, settling on Torren on Natasha's arm and that wasn't _right_ and Natasha had her knife out even before she saw the glowing disc in the man's hand. She let her knife fly as she saw the man's thumb move towards the blinking button on the top of the disc. The long blade buried itself in the man's chest, knocking him back into the wall as the glowing disc tumbled to the ground.

The man was dead before he hit the floor.

Rodney yelped and Torren was crying, jarred awake by Natasha's adrenaline rush and sudden action. Ronon pulled a gun from somewhere and aimed it at Natasha, while John knelt by the dead man.

"What did you _do_?" John demanded, horrified. The moment the words left his mouth, the man on the floor started to change, the appearance of Jack O'Neill melting away to leave an unfamiliar corpse in its place.

John jumped up, backed away from the body. There was a moment of appalled silence, broken only by Torren's wails.

"What the motherfucking hell?" John demanded. Ronon, his gun still trained on Natasha, moved towards the glowing disc, but Rodney stopped him.

"Don't," Rodney said urgently. "I've seen those in Area 51, they can stun everyone in a fifty foot radius, _do not touch_." He stepped over to the body and pointed at a small metal circle pinned to the unfamiliar man's shirt. "Don't you see what this is?"

John was breathing hard. "Proof that my mother didn't just knife a three-star general in an earth-side hospital?"

"No, it's one of the alien cloaking devices that nearly caused a foothold situation in--" Rodney pulled up short. "Wait, what, your _mother?_ "

The waiting room door opened again, and this time Natasha had her gun out before she registered that it was just Clint. He took in the room and said, "Huh."

Ronon hesitated, not sure where he should point his weapon, but Natasha lowered her gun and said, "It's okay, he's a friend."

"He's your friend," Ronon rumbled, but John shook off his confusion and held up a hand.

"Barton? John asked Natasha. He received an answer in her eyes, for he waved Ronon down. "They're like BFFs."

Ronon gave Clint one last glare, and went to stand by the door.

Natasha slid her gun into her belt holster and concentrated on comforting Torren, who had descended into a full-on melt-down. He wanted his mother and only his mother and Natasha had to draw on distant memories of calming John from one of his tantrums to make a dent in the noise.

"This is not the guy who came down the hall," Clint pointed out. He pulled his SHIELD-issued phone from a pocket and took a scan of the dead man's face.

"Like I was saying," Rodney interjected with irritation. "That's alien technology, enabling anyone to mimic the appearance of someone else, it's highly classified and should _not_ be outside Area 51. And _mother_?"

"How did you know it wasn't General O'Neill?" John asked Natasha, looking at her with unfamiliar intensity.

Natasha kissed Torren's cheek, rocking him as his wailing became intermittent and he snuffled against her neck. Making sure to mask her thoughts, Natasha said, "Jack O'Neill and I have a history. That man looked past me like I wasn't a threat."

John's eyebrows went up. "What do you mean, a history?"

Natasha gave him a look. On the floor, Clint smirked as he pretended to be involved with his phone. "There may have been handcuffs involved," Natasha said.

John only looked more perturbed. "My question stands," he said, but moved over to Clint's side. "Any clue who he is?"

Clint held up his phone. "Facial recognition says Gregory Mellas, known mercenary. It tracks with the other two we pulled out of the van. Guns for hire."

John's face closed off. "I'm going to want those two in my custody," he said.

Clint shrugged, standing up. "Your boss and my boss can talk about it, it's over my pay grade."

"Uh huh." John stuck out his hand. "John Sheppard."

"Clint Barton," Clint responded, taking John's hand and shaking a bit harder than was necessary.

Natasha rolled her eyes and went to sit in the chair furthest away from the body. Torren was close to sleep now, and she didn't want to experience the emotional echo of another tantrum. She pretended to not notice how Ronon sat in the chair between her and the door.

"So we have my people call your people," John was saying.

"Already done," Clint said, tapping his earpiece. "Sounds like my director is just pleased as punch."

"Coulson?" John asked.

"Nah," Clint responded. "Though he says hi, by the way."

"So glad to hear it," John said. He looked down at the body on the floor. "What are we going to do about this?"

At that very moment, the door opened and a young woman in doctor's scrubs came into the room. She looked at the group, down at the body on the floor, then at Rodney. "Okay, what?" she asked, not nearly as confused as she should have been.

"Jennifer!" Rodney said, at the same time John exclaimed "Dr. Keller," and the woman just held up her hands and smiled.

A wave of relief washed over Natasha. She kissed Torren's head and rocked him as Dr. Keller told the room that Teyla was going to be okay, the surgery had been a success, and Teyla just needed time to heal.

"Your mommy's going to be back with you soon," Natasha whispered to Torren, wishing she could keep the boy safe and knowing that was impossible.

* * *

She hadn't counted on Director Fury himself showing up.

The body in the waiting room had been covered and retrieved by SHIELD operatives, and Dr. Keller had returned to monitor Teyla's post-op recovery. John and Rodney were talking in low voices, at least John was. Natasha sat in her chair, weighed down by a sleeping baby and Clint's uncharacteristic silence.

"On a scale of one to ten, how much trouble are we in?" she asked.

Clint shrugged. "You stabbed a man masquerading as a lieutenant general and saved a kidnapped baby from some kind of international classified mission. I think we've cranked this one up to eleven."

It was at that point that Director Fury swept into the room, all eye patch and black leather, and said as firmly as he could, "Strike team Delta, with me."

Natasha handed the sleeping baby to Ronon and trailed the man out into the hall, Clint and John on her heels.

She stopped so suddenly John walked into her. At the far end of the hall stood a familiar man, a man she had stabbed not an hour before. Jack O'Neill was older, greyer, and he stared at her with such apprehension that the years fell away, and it was like Krakow all over again.

"That is why I knew it wasn't your O'Neill," Natasha told John, never breaking eye contact with the General. "Some things you never forget."

Clint shrugged and walked after Director Fury. "Do we need some tumbleweeds?" he asked, although he didn't cross the line of sight between Natasha and O'Neill. "Some classical guitar?"

Natasha followed him, although she was not thrilled at being this close to Jack O'Neill again. She wouldn't be altogether surprised if the man pulled a gun on her; it was his turn.

"Agent Romanova," O'Neill said with false enthusiasm as she approached. "I hear we have you to thank for saving the day."

"Just going my job, General," Natasha said. She put her hands behind her back and stood at attention. "I look forward to hearing exactly what that was all about."

O'Neill gave her a sardonic smile. "There is not a goddamn chance in any hell that you'll be read into this project."

"Damn it, Jack--" Natasha started, but Director Fury cut her off.

"Agent Romanoff, the US Air Force thanks you for your contribution," Fury said, irritation bleeding through in every word. "At this time, you are relieved of your duties in this operation."

Natasha whirled on the man. "What?"

"Pack it in and head back to base, you and Barton are on paid leave."

"There is no way I'm walking away--"

"Romanoff--"

"Twice these people tried to grab Torren and twice I had to--"

"Agent Romanoff!" Fury roared, startling her into momentary silence. "You're off this!"

"But--"

"Walk it off. Now!"

Wanting to stab Jack O'Neill for a second time in one day, Natasha backed up down the hall, not breaking eye contact with O'Neill until she was at the corner.

Then she stalked out of the building, past the SHIELD cordon, before she could do anything unfortunate. She'd have to trust that Torren was safe with Ronon and Rodney, that John would understand.

She hit the hospital entrance and kept going, down the street in the soft foggy darkness until she reached a small sparsely populated alcove. One of the occupants, a patient with an IV pole, noticed her pacing. "Hey," he said, and held out a pack. "Looks like you need this more than I do."

Natasha took the pack, fished the last cigarette out of the foil, and accepted a light from a doctor. "Thanks," she said after a deep lungful of smoke.

The patient nodded, gripped his IV pole and began his slow shuffle back to the hospital. After a minute, the doctor gave Natasha a nod and walked after the man, leaving Natasha alone to her thoughts.

Natasha sat in the odd illumination of the halogen lamps, and tried to remember how to breath steadily.

After the first flush of her anger at Director Fury, she could understand why he threw her under the bus. There was no way Jack O'Neill would let the _Black Widow_ in on anything to do with the American military, and there was no way that Director Fury would jeopardize the chance of SHIELD being brought in on the Nevada/California situation.

That didn't mean Natasha wasn't pissed off.

A dark shape shambled out of the fog. Natasha watched as John walked over and slumped on the cold metal bench beside her. Natasha offered John the cigarette, which he accepted and took a puff from before handing it back.

John broke the silence. "So I guess you meant handcuffs in a bad way."

Natasha sighed. "You just told me way too much about your sex life."

John shook his head. "General O'Neill's a really good guy."

"I know he is," Natasha said, surprising John. "There was a time in my life that I was tasked with stopping the good guys, remember?" She sucked down the last of the cigarette, feeling the glow of the embers burn her fingers, before tossing the butt into the nearby ashtray.

"He, uh, knows about you. And me," John said after a minute. "When I was first tapped for the project, he nearly had me pulled when he found out about you. He was pretty choked."

Natasha put her aching head in her hands. "Why didn't he?"

"He said he figured that what I did was more important than where I came from."

"Smart man."

"Yeah."

After a few minutes of silence, Natasha made herself sit up. "Why was Torren a target?" she asked.

John let out a low breath, a sound of masked pain. "You figured out what he can do," John said raggedly. "When Teyla was pregnant, there was this guy. He, uh..." John swallowed. "You once told me that they experimented on you, trying to make you into something else."

"I did," Natasha said, pushing down her rage. It was one thing to experiment on a child of seven, but a baby still in its mother's womb...

"Michael was trying to make Torren into something he could use. After he was born, we figured that Torren was okay, but in the last few months he's been doing the mind thing instead of talking. We try to keep it quiet, never write it down or anything." John cleared his throat. "Before today, I would have said that not a single person on the expedition would do anything to hurt Torren and Teyla."

And there it was, the deep love and terror mixed in with betrayal.

Natasha took John's hand as he stared off into the distance. "Someone I _trusted_ did this," he said. "They'd have killed Teyla and taken Torren, for what?" He was shaking with suppressed anger.

"There are people out there who would pay vast fortunes to control a reader," Natasha said softly.

John made a sound of pain. "Money? I'd understand ideology, but _money_?"

"Shh," Natasha said. She patted John's arm. "You're going to find out who they are, and you're going to make sure they never hurt anyone ever again."

He looked at her steadily, a low-burning promise of retribution in his eyes. Natasha knew that expression, had seen it countless times in the mirror.

John Sheppard was his mother's son, and it broke her heart.

"This is my fault," John said, rubbing his hand over his face. "I should have had Teyla's back, that's why she wasn't paying attention, I _always_ have her back but I didn't think something could happen on home soil--"

Natasha squeezed John's arm. "Don't do this," she said. "These men, they would have followed you until they found an opportunity to grab Torren."

"I'd have spotted them if I'd been looking--"

"And then they would have shot you too," Natasha said firmly. "John, I know this type, I spent decades working with people like this. There is no way you would have walked away from this." She made him look at her. "John. They would have taken Torren and not left anyone alive to find him."

John pulled away. "You have no idea what I've done, in the past five years, in the past _fifteen_ , I'd have been able to stop them!" he exclaimed.

"John, you can't change the past," Natasha said. "Teyla will heal and Torren is safe. This could have ended so much worse."

"Oh, I know," John said, and Natasha didn't understand the edge in his voice. "Do you want to know what I thought? Not at first, but when Teyla was in surgery and I couldn't get in touch with you..."

His voice was ragged and full of reproach, and Natasha suddenly knew where this was going.

"You thought I set it all up," Natasha answered for him, her insides turning to ice. "You thought that somehow I arranged the shooters and distracted you so you couldn't help Teyla. And I went after Torren because that was part of the plan."

"And then you brought him back and I didn't know what to say," John said, his voice cracking. He angrily wiped his eyes. "I just-- I spent ten years listening to stories about the Black Widow, about how you were the thing that gave the devil nightmares, the deadliest spy in Europe, all the things you'd _done_..." He swallowed hard. "I didn't know what to think and I didn't know who grabbed Torren and I didn't know what I was going to say to Teyla when she woke up and I didn't have Torren."

Natasha hunched in on herself. All she'd done in a lifetime of operations and intrigue, all the death and destruction she'd caused, and she never thought that her son would throw it in her face like this.

The problem was that John _wasn't wrong_ about her past.

"I'm sorry," John said, sounding miserable and broken.

Natasha wanted another cigarette, wanted a drink, anything to stop the pounding in her head, to un-know that her son could think such things about her. "I want you to know something," she said after a few minutes. John held himself still, body tensed. "There's a lot of things that might happen, but I will never betray you. I need you to know that."

Slowly, the tension eased out of John's shoulders. "It's just..." He took a deep breath. "Torren's not my son, but he's Teyla's son. I'd do anything for him. I mean, before he was born I didn't know what to think, it wasn't like it had anything to do with me, but then he was born and I was just holding him and... I got it."

"Because he's her son," Natasha said. Out of the fog, Clint Barton approached on silent feet.

John looked at her, eyes full of things Natasha couldn't understand. "Yeah."

Natasha squeezed John's hand. "He's lucky to have you." She kissed his cheek and stood up. "You're a good man, John."

"Even if I thought you--"

"You looked at the facts laid out in front of you, took the intel as you understood it, and didn't let sentimentality get in the way," Natasha said firmly. "You do everything to protect your children, John. That's what matters. That is all that matters."

Natasha turned and walked away. She'd only gotten a few steps when John's voice made her pause. "Mom?"

She turned back.

"Thank you for Torren," he said, so serious that Natasha couldn’t think of anything to say.

So she just nodded, and walked away into the fog.

Clint walked beside her in silence as they approached the parking structure. "He's going to be okay," Clint finally said. "The kid."

"I know."

"What did John say?" Clint asked.

Natasha didn't answer, not until they were in the SHIELD vehicle and rolling through the streets. "Do you know much about your parents' past?"

Clint's hand tightened on the steering wheel. "A bit," he said, voice clipped. "There's not much worth knowing."

Natasha pulled her legs up to her chest. The adrenaline rush from the mission was fading, and every part of her body ached. "John knows all about me. My past. The Black Widow."

Clint looked at her, but didn't speak. What could he possible say, Natasha wondered.

"And I think today was the first time he realized what that means."

"I'm sorry, Tasha," Clint said.

Natasha shook her head. "Don't be," she said, making herself suppress her emotions. Her son was the only thing that made her weak, and she couldn't afford that right now. "I know what I've done."

The car came to a halt at a red light. Clint took the opportunity to touch Natasha's leg. "The only reason Torren's alive is that you are very good at what you do," he pointed out. "Just like the only reason John's alive is that you had a mission in New England in 1969. You get that, right?"

Natasha looked out the window. "I'm perfectly aware of the cause and effect nature of my line of work, Agent Barton."

"You did the best you could today, Nat. Things worked out. Give John some time, he'll see that."

Natasha didn't respond. She knew she was the best at what she did, had done everything she could have done that day to rescue Torren, to protect those people John considered family.

She just wished that John hadn't realized the dark side of her nature. Natasha Romanova was the Black Widow, and the Black Widow was who she was.

She would just have to accept that the one thing she could not protect John from, was herself.

* * *

 

> Hey. We figured out who it was. I didn't think it could get any worse but this was someone I trusted for three years. Trust, ha.
> 
> They're not letting me in on the interrogation.
> 
> j

* * *

 

> How are Teyla and Torren?
> 
> Natasha

* * *

 

> Teyla's drugged up and cranky. she's back home tho which is good.
> 
> Torren's a total nightmare, it's awesome. I wish I knew what the hell you put in his head, the only way I've been able to get him to sleep has been to tell him those stupid Captain America stories, Rodney will not let me live that down.
> 
> we're leaving in a few hours. I won't be able to write for a while, so I wanted to say thank you. for torren. for everything.
> 
> and i'm sorry.
> 
> j

* * *

 

> There's nothing to apologize for. I mean what I said. Our children are all that matter.
> 
> You may not wish to hear this, but I love you and nothing will change that.
> 
> Natasha

* * *

 

> love u 2 mom
> 
> j

* * *

**Four days later**

Natasha stood at parade rest in front of Nick Fury's desk and stared at the wall. The man himself sat in his chair and glared with more than his usual vigour.

"The U.S. Air Force really doesn't like you, Agent Romanoff."

"I don't have much time for the Air Force either, sir."

Fury narrowed his eye at her. "Was there a question anywhere in what I said, Agent?"

"No."

"You're right, no." Fury picked up a folder and tossed it across the desk to her. "So you're going to stop poking your nose into all the data coming out of Nevada and California, do I make myself clear?"

Natasha remained silent.

"That requires a response!"

"Yes sir," Natasha retorted. "A completely useless response considering my background in monitoring U.S. military actions--"

"Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?" Fury demanded. "This is about Junior and we both know it. Do me a favor and save me from having to hold your hand and talk about your _feelings_ , there is no way you're getting in on this project!"

Natasha clenched her jaw and counted to ten in Croatian.

"I've had enough of the crap that you and Barton get into to last me a fucking lifetime. You're being assigned a long-term cover. Barton's getting rotated."

"What?" Natasha demanded. "This is bullshit--"

"Agent?"

"This is bullshit, _sir!_ Barton and I are well-suited to working together--"

"You're a walking disaster zone! You're going to work on separate projects and get the fuck over yourselves, do I make myself clear?"

Natasha picked up the folder and angrily flipped it open. The top pages held details of her cover identity. Natasha scanned the pages, growing more incredulous by the word. "What is this?" she demanded. "Legal counsel? Gymnastics?" She flipped another page, and nearly had an aneurism. "Modeling in Japan? Where the hell are you sending me?"

"Stark Industries," Fury said, standing up in a sweep of leather. "Tony Stark is a self-destructive time bomb and we need someone to keep an eye on him and Iron Man."

"This is babysitting!" Natasha said. "I'd be so much more useful doing _anything_ else!"

"Agent Romanoff, I watched you blow a hole in an operation in San Francisco because of your personal life," Fury said, driving the final blow home. "You prove to me that you can _do your job_ like a professional and we'll talk about your next assignment."

"No."

"What did you just say?"

"I said no," Natasha snapped. She dropped the folder on Fury's desk. "Everything I did in San Francisco _was_ professional, and you know it. The fact that the child I saved was my son's godson had no bearing on the method in which I carried out my mission. That's why you hired me, that's why you keep me here year after year. Because I can do things you need done!"

Fury crossed his arms over his chest. "Is that so?"

"Yes."

They stared at each other. Natasha was breathing a bit heavily, mostly from the force of effort she was having to expend to _not_ turn the altercation physical. Not that she would make much headway; Fury was nearly as skilled in hand-to-hand combat as she, but it would be more satisfying than screaming at him.

"Fine," Fury said, uncrossing his arms.

"What?"

"You're right," Fury said. "And you are still going to Stark Industries because you are a goddamn _pain_ in my ass and you've been living in Barton's pocket for nearly ten years and I've had enough of it."

"Sir--"

"Stop talking," Fury ordered. "Pick up your folder, go read a law book or something. Just get the hell out of my office."

Not sure if she'd been dressed down or complimented, Natasha picked up the folder and turned to go.

"Have fun with Stark, Agent Romanoff, he's like a overactive toddler on crystal meth," Fury said.

Natasha looked over her shoulder. "So just like any other day at SHIELD, then?" she asked, and sped off down the hall before he could kick her ass.

She had to find Clint and Coulson and see what the hell was going on.

* * *

 

> John,
> 
> I am going on another assignment. I am to be a lawyer in Los Angeles. You can write me if you like; you are to be my cousin again.
> 
> Please pass my regards on to Teyla and Torren.
> 
> You can address any correspondence to Natalie Rushman, c.o. Stark Industries.
> 
> With love,
> 
> Your mother.

 

_the end_


End file.
